If you are one of the many people sending money abroad via your cellphone you are not alone. FNB’s CEO of eWallet Solutions, Yolande van Wyk, said this week that FNB’s eWallet African operations enjoyed a 119% year-on-year increase in the last financial year. The business has also maintained its growth trajectory in South Africa with the total number of eWallets in all countries reaching 2.5 million, an 84% increase on the previous financial year.
FNB has a sizeable chunk of the mobile money business and according to a World Wide Worx report, 51% of the mobile money users in South Africa are FNB eWallet users.
Mobile money involves the use of a cellphone to transfer funds between people and bank accounts, to deposit or withdraw money, to pay bills or to buy services such as airtime and electricity.
“The success of eWallet in South Africa as well as our African operations has proven that there is a pervasive need to send money easily and instantly through a network agnostic mobile money solution,” says van Wyk. “Over the last financial year alone, over R3.2 billion has been sent into eWallets across countries in which the service has been launched. These countries include South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and Zambia.”
Outside of South Africa two countries in particular have shown very high customer acceptance and take-up. Both Namibia and Botswana’s growth has exceeded expectations with approximately 17% of citizens in Botswana and, in less than a year, over 5% of the population in Namibia receiving money into an eWallet.
“The growth of eWallet in the African subsidiaries has been a lesson in how local conditions effect how people adopt and use a service. We have noticed that Botswana and Namibia’s low population density contributes to the take-up. With a population density of less than four people per square kilometer in both these countries, there is clearly a need to send money across a distance, and eWallet has fulfilled this need,” says van Wyk.
In South Africa there are no discernible corridors as eWallet users tend to send money within a region or province, with Gauteng being the predominant province from which people are sending and receiving money.