Mobile money: USD 1,400 billion

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In fifteen years Africa has built a payment infrastructure that Europe does not have. According to the 2026 report of the global association of mobile operators, mobile money transactions in sub-Saharan Africa reached USD 1,400 billion in 2025, out of a world total of more than USD 2,000 billion. Africa accounted for 1.2 billion registered accounts out of 2.3 billion worldwide, and 347 million monthly active accounts, or nearly 60 per cent of the world total. East Africa represented USD 806 billion in transactions and West Africa USD 498 billion.¹ These figures far exceed those of the conventional banking systems of most of the countries concerned. They make the telephone operators the leading financial intermediaries of the continent.

For the Geneva financial centre, this infrastructure changes the nature of the flows with Africa. Diaspora remittances, payments by traders to producers, disbursements under humanitarian programmes and investments in African companies increasingly pass through mobile money, whose operators are becoming counterparties, clients and partners of Geneva’s banks and fintechs. It also raises questions of compliance, customer due diligence, traceability and sanctions, which African regulators address with unequal means. It offers Geneva’s impact-finance players a distribution channel for microfinance, insurance and savings. Mobile money is the foundation of the African lead in fintech that this chapter has described.

Notes

“$1.4T flowed through mobile money in sub-Saharan Africa in 2025”, connectingafrica.com, 26 March 2026, presenting the GSMA’s State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money 2026. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

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Mobile money: USD 1,400 billion

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