Mobile money agents are a crucial asset for mobile money providers and have been key to the growth of the industry over the last decade. In December 2017, there were over 2.9 million active agents and 690 million registered customer accounts worldwide. Primarily responsible for registering customer accounts, mobile money agents continue to boost transactions and drive provider revenues year on year. Total annual values of cash-in and cash-out (CICO) transactions rose from US$39.93 billion in 2012, to US$192.93 billion in 2017 – accounting for 54.6 per cent of the total value of mobile money transactions in 2017. Given the continued importance of CICO networks in supporting the underserved to convert physical cash to digital value, providers can justify additional investment in agent distribution networks to preserve this vital asset.

Across the four main operational functions of an agent network – agent onboarding, agent training, liquidity management and agent monitoring – we identify a number of initiatives that are improving agent networks.