Returning to the UAE recently, I spent sometime restoring my local Etisalat line. It could not be done at the airport, because the system was down ( there is an automated simcard dispenser which works with the residency ID, a key centralisation feature for almost all commercial and government services that is one of the hallmarks of administration and commerce in the Emirates).
Afterwards with my line active, now an E-sim, the attendant an Egyptian said he used his “mobile wallet” to make purchases, another widespread integration feature these days such as the Apple Wallet. But asked by me whether he uses Mobile Money, a distinct and mostly African phenomenon of transfer of money to and from a mobile phone, he added only his friends in Egypt use it frequently.
Yes Egypt.
The home of the pyramids, a technological marvel with nearly no equals, Egypt is also one of the handful of African countries with an electricity capacity above 50 gigawatts. This is important because the next generation of innovation will be via artificial intelligence which requires vast amounts of power. Egypt ranks second after South Africa in its electricity output (61 gigawatts versus South Africa’s 66GW). By this measure as and when Cairo pivots aggressively into the digital financial currents now rocking East and West Africa, it will be in good stead ( see fun fact about South Africa below)
But we digress. Somalia which relies on less than 100 megawatts is an innovations powerhouse. Companies like Dahabshil, a Somali money exchange giant that transfer millions of dollars every week between the UAE, home to nearly 700,000 Ugandans by some estimates, the total value of annual remittances is now over a billion dollars) do so directly to the mobile phones of recipients.
That Mobile Money phenomenon again
While by some measure the transfer of money from a Bank account to mobile phone is a combinant of this African Mobile Money revolution, because it is a revolution, the direction of financial services today points to a completely digital future driven by the use of mobile money and the innovations that occur on that platform.
There are many studies that show just how transformative financial activity on mobile phones are but by far my favorite is how it is erasing informality from many African economies. This had been, when I started out as a young journalist a common hurdle for economists trying to figure out how to organise production and markets. The end of informality through handheld devices and their use ( tied to national IDs) has opened a door for people who long pursued by central government revenue collectors and the army of consultants who speak “Domestic Revenue Mobilisation” to walk in voluntarily. Moreover with data mining, especially the transfer of money for specific uses, economic activity is possible to be tracked and and understood.
The old financial empires founded on bank accounts and TIN numbers never moved as quickly as the mobile phone as a personal address. To date it has ushered in more than half the adult population in mobile based interaction and we are at the foundation stages of economic modelling based on data generated from mobile based platforms.
One can postulate, and in fact dare hope that alongside this mash-up within countries that use mobile money that the growing financial industry that is testing seamless cross-currency exchanges between countries will also usher within Africa in the coming decades a genuine and organic closeness between communities that has also been elusive through the main street of economic groupings and political union attempted by African leaders over time.
There is something to be said about being in Kampala and connecting with a market in Benin or Sharm El Sheik. And doing so all with local currencies whose relative value is translated on Mobile Money applications ( several African countries are demanding all trade and services be done in their local currency but the technology will resolve these contradictions is my prediction).
Borderless currency? Well it is clear that real African unity is more about information and culture but the money will help.
While sorting out my mobile network, I had also been chatting with a Ghanaian silversmith ( Dzidor Ablayo Godo, Kwame Nkurumah University of Science and Technology) about an order and figuring out how much her product would cost when converted from Ugandan shillings to Cedis. One solution that speaks to that are companies like Etranzact, a Pan-African switch payment service that was recently incorporated in Uganda and run by my friend Andrew Rugasira ( of the famous Good African Coffee fame). It offers a wallet that allows exactly this type of cross currency transfers. In this case Etranzact ( with a strong presence in West Africa including Ghana) provides a wallet service that allows transactions in over 30 currencies on the continent. I say cultural, above, because the logic of the economy is not products and their solutions alone. It is based on people connecting, sometimes online, but often driven by physical ambassadors that put Africans in touch with each other, something that will become easier as physical connections on the continent and the free movement of people and goods becomes a reality of every day existence.
In the meantime the digital story leading the integration of the continent is truly breathtaking even at this early stages. Take the Pan-African Telecoms company MTN. Its mobile money business across the continent grossed at 1.4 trillion dollars in 2023 and will likely double this year ( across 17 countries). At the time of this writing MTN is awaiting regulatory approval the seperation of its FinTech business from other telecommunications business a decision likely driven by the trend analysed here.
Ghana and Uganda are just part of the growing evidence that continental plans, currently under the African Continental Free Trade Area’s Digital Trade Protocol, are the future highways for functional African unity. According to recent statistics MTN Ghana has a total of 28.7 million mobile money subscriptions and by some estimates Ghanians transact 196 billion cedis worth daily with a merchant network now upwards of 615,000 vendors. Just assuming that the jewelry business had a merchant code with an integrated payment option, my attempts to purchase a gift would sit snuggly on my palm.
Ideally MTN should platform, through MoMo, merchant payments across its customers whereever they may be in Africa. According to the State of Industry Report on Mobile Money 2025, East Africans like me are more engaged with mobile money ( see previous story, The Algorithm and the Citizen) even if West Africa leads with the number of registered accounts. East Africa has a total of 459 million mobile money accounts but transacted over twice what West Africa with its 485 million accounts did (transaction volume for EAC was US$ 52 billion compared to US$ 22 billion in West Africa). In both regions the case can be made to broaden coverage and deepen engagement ( Kenya is leading the way with innovations like Ratiba by Safaricom which allows users to automate recurring payments such that managing obligations like rent, school fees, payments to family members are easier) but put simply unlocking US$ 80 billion ( an underestimate in my view) under the single digital trade mainframe for the continent is a lot of connections between African countries.
Thus although the Digital Trade Protocol under AcFTA is not receiving the standing ovation that it deserves, the protocol is fundamental re-imagining of how technology and money can bring the continent together and a pointer to what African leaders should be championing. In total, according to the 2025 Mobile Money Industry report, US$ 81 billion worth was transacted with mobile money in 2024 bigger in size than the GDP of both Uganda and Tanzania.
Behind all that dough is people, real people pursuing their trades, tending to their families and building durable wealth in ways that has been simplified by the technology.
P.S Ironically despite MTN being a South African company, mobile money transactions declined by 9% in 2024.
