Financial services firm consulting firm, Deloitte has confirmed that Nigeria and Kenya are ripe for the use of mobile money having created a ripe environment for the use of near field communication (NFC) technology and other forms of mobile wallets which could be more widely accepted as payment systems compared to traditional ones such as credit cards.
The firm in research noted that the adoption of the alternative payment systems could not only further slow the growth of the use of credit cards but could also see the creation of a new market for NFC-enabled devices including point of sale terminals and mobile phones in the country.
Deloitte, in the research note that summarises expected trends in the technology, media and telecommunications industries globally this year, pointed that to the success of mobile banking and payments in emerging markets where many people have cell phones but few have credit cards or bank accounts as an opportunity for the growth the alternative payment systems.
"It is possible that NFC devices could do well in similar markets particularly in major cities which are more likely to have NFC-enabled point of sale terminals. It is expected that 700 million people in emerging markets will be using mobile money services by the end of 2015 and many of those could be NFC-enabled," notes the consulting firm.
Near field communication, which works well for small value payments allows users to wave an enabled device against a payment device.
International financial service firm Citigroup, in a global plastic money and payments sector outlook report for 2012, said that Kenya has the highest number of individuals in Africa using mobile money, placing it among the countries that are ripe for the development of a mobile wallets and NFC-enabled payment systems.
The financial services firm also notes that the growth of mobile wallets and the payment system is expected to be faster in emerging markets than in the world's largest economy, the United States of America where plastic money is widely used.
"Currently about 40 million mobile money users exist in Africa - the lion's share of this is attributable to the over 20 million users of Safaricom's M-Pesa offering in Kenya," noted Citigroup in their report.
According to the financial services firm, Nigeria has approximately 90 million mobile subscribers and where the banking regulator gave final approval to 11 companies to commence mobile money services across the country late last year.
Citigroup also said that South Africa's payment system industry is also expected to change following NFC trials currently being tested by Absa Bank, which could potentially roll out 40 million users and last year's acquisition of Fundamo a South African mobile payments firm by Visa International.
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