African Women Gain Financial Control Through Mobile Money
The rise in digital financial services like mobile wallets, savings apps, and instant loans are opening access to money for millions of African women, helping to narrow long-standing gender gaps and giving women greater financial control and independence.
By Conrad Onyango, bird story agency
At the crack of dawn on a cold Thursday, Jane Mwangi arranged fresh tomatoes, onions, kales and coriander on her wooden roadside stall in Nairobi.
As she stretched her hand to pick a bunch of kale from a gunny bag, she was distracted by the buzzing of her phone.
She did not answer. She only smiled and returned the handset into her pocket. It was not a call. Rather, it was a notification that a customer had sent her money.
“I used to lose money or spend it without thinking. Now I know exactly what comes in each day,” she said, her thumb scrolling through her transaction log.
A customer who had selected onions and coriander at the stall while Mwangi was scrolling through her phone, asked for her mobile phone number. She quickly instructed him to, “wire through Pochi,” as she told him the number.
Pochi la Biashara is Safaricom’s mobile money platform tailored for small traders, which Mwangi uses to collect payments directly from customers, with no need for change or a cash box.
The customer makes a transaction and leaves. Her earnings land safely in her business wallet, separate from her personal mobile money account.
She then sat on a plastic chair and with a few taps on her smartphone, she moved part of her earnings into her M-Shwari savings account, where it earns interest.
“When business is low or stock runs out, I borrow a short-term credit from mobile loan apps to restock my stall or pay school fees for my children,” she said.
Mwangi’s digital financial journey mirrors findings from a report released this month that mobile technology is helping to narrow gender gap in financial inclusion and giving women on the continent control over their money.
According to the World Bank’s Global Findex report, mobile money account ownership among women in low- and middle-income countries has nearly doubled in just over a decade from 37% in 2011 to 73% in 2024.
Mobile money platforms, the report said, are becoming lifelines for millions of women including those who have never set foot into a brick-and-mortar bank.
“More people than ever have the financial tools to invest in their futures and build economic resilience, including women and others previously left behind. This is real progress,” said Gates Foundation Chair, Bill Gates, who is also one of the supporters of the Global Findex.
GSMA state of industry report on mobile money 2025, also affirms the growth in registered mobile money accounts, that recorded double digit growth to reach over half a billion monthly active users and 2 billion total registered accounts last year, driven by new accounts in Africa.
According to the report, Sub-Saharan Africa remains at the epicentre of mobile money, accounting for over 1.1 billion registered accounts.
“As mobile money continues to drive financial inclusion, it is also unlocking new opportunities for people to save, earn, and spend – solidifying its place as a true fintech success story,” said GSMA Director General, Vivek Badrinath, in the report.
The gender gap in account ownership is now just four percentage points globally and five percentage points in developing countries—down from much wider gaps a decade ago.
And as more women open digital bank accounts via mobile phones, they are closing the gap in formal saving against men who still lead by seven percentage points.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 35% of adults saved formally using mobile or bank accounts, with countries like Senegal leading with 67% of adults saving formally in 2024, a sharp rise from 46% in 2021.
According to the Findex report, formal saving among women nearly doubled between 2021 and 2024, rising to 36 percent, driven largely by platforms like M-Shwari, Airtel Money, and MTN MoMo.
“The case for investing in inclusive financial systems, digital public infrastructure, and connectivity is clear—it’s a proven path to unlocking opportunity for everyone,” said Banga.
Telcos have been revamping their offerings in mobile money as they seek to bolster transactions and the financial inclusion agenda.
Since 2023, Airtel Kenya, has been running a campaign dubbed, ‘Rudishiwa’ that introduced 50% reimbursement of transaction fees on bank to Airtel Money wallet transactions, citing reaction to customer feedback on growing demand for innovative mobile money offerings.
The Campaign targeted transactions on payment of utility bills, paying for air tickets and government services, a clear demonstration of rising use cases of mobile money.
“Digital payments are even more critical today as we continue to digitise cash and empower Kenyans to safely use mobile money for their day-to-day requirements. Moreover, Kenyans are constantly on the lookout for value for money solutions that will enable them save more,” said Airtel Money Managing Director Anne Kinuthia-Otieno, in a statement.
MTN Momo in Uganda launched this July, a campaign dubbed Power to be More, in a push for more subscriber participation in the digital economy and a strategic positioning of the platform as a one-stop digital financial ecosystem.
It seeks to convert mobile phones into a digital bank, an online market place, a financial advisor, and an insurance provider.
“This evolution is about enabling Ugandans to pay for goods and services, settle school fees, save, borrow and invest from a mobile phone,” said MTN Momo Uganda Chief Products Officer, Jemima Kariuki in a statement.
Use of digital merchant payments, payments made by retail customers to businesses in stores or online, grew to 42 percent of all adults in 2024, up from 35 percent in 2021, the Findex report shows with the share of adults making such payments more than doubling in some economies, including Cameroon, with widespread adoption in Kenya.
The rise of affordable handsets and agent networks, authors of the report said is also helping to bridge the financial access divide, with digital payments now cited as the most widely used formal financial service across Africa.
In 2024, 61% of adults in developing economies made or received a digital payment, up from 34% in 2014, according to the World Bank report.
But challenges remain.
While all these developments are unfolding, women are still less likely to own mobile phones, compared to men with a gap of 9 percentage points in low- and middle-income economies.
For instance, smartphone ownership among women lags in countries with some of the highest populations on the continent like Ethiopia (45%).
There was, however, an improvement in Nigeria, which saw its gender gap decrease from 46% to 41% in 2024, following a rise in account ownership levels for both men and women.
In countries like South Africa and Zimbabwe, more women than men own a smartphone, with an ownership rate that is racing towards 90% for women.
Smartphone ownership among women is recorded in Lesotho at 80% — which is at near parity in Ghana, 87%, and in Gabon, Botswana, Libya and Algeria, all above 80%.
World Bank Group President Ajay Banga said digital finance has the potential to fix access gaps and improve lives and transform entire economies.
“Digital finance can convert this potential into reality, but several ingredients need to be in place,” said Banga.
bird story agency
