Photo from Left to Right: Roar Bjaerum, Easypaisa, Telenor Pakistan; Frederic Bléhaut, Orange Money, Orange Madagascar; Ibrahim Abdirahman, Zaad, Telesom Somaliland; and Abrar Mir, Omni, UBL Pakistan.

The findings from the 2012 Global Mobile Money Adoption Survey counted 30 million active mobile customers, 224 million transactions and USD 4.6 billion transacted on mobile money in June 2012. While these numbers indicate increasing industry maturity, mobile money remains a two-tier landscape. There are just 14 fast- growing services or GSMA Mobile Money Sprinters while the rest are struggling to gain traction or young services still at a very early stage.

Here are some highlights from the four Sprinters who joined the MMU Working Group panel:

• Telesom Zaad, Somaliland – In a country with 70%+ illiteracy and 98% of the population financial excluded, Zaad’s mobile money success is particularly exciting.  In June 2012, 8.3 million mobile money transactions were conducted by just 240,000 active customers.  Or said another way, that’s roughly 34 mobile money transactions per customer per month. Ibrahim Abdirahman on behalf of Telesom MD Abdikarim Dirie shared with the audience that customer activity and satisfaction was due a high degree of trust of Telesom, weak alternative options, and mobile money being used for business purposes.
• Telenor Easypaisa, Pakistan – Telenor is a GSMA sprinter helping to “myth bust” the view that you must have dominant GSM market share to win in mobile money.  With ~25% market share, Telenor elected the over-the-counter (OTC) model at launch to reach customers beyond just their network and ease the mobile money customer adoption journey. Through both OTC and mobile account models, Roar Bjaerum shared that Easypaisa today has 20,000 agents across Pakistan serving around 4 million customers a month.
• UBL Omni, Pakistan – While most GSMA Mobile Money Sprinters are MNOs, Omni is a mobile money service led by a bank and achieving great results.  The service got its start with the G2P product, which afforded UBL time to build up its distribution network and establish trust with the customer. While bank led services typically have a bigger hill to climb with setting up distribution networks, Abrar Mir shared with us that building Omni’s distribution network was relatively smooth, thanks to a mobile money team built from completely outside the world of banking.
• Orange Money, Madagascar – With tough economic conditions and a pressured telecom sector in Madagascar, Orange Money was selected as the key product to drive growth.  As such, the product and project leader Erwan Gelebart enjoyed very strong commitment from CEO Jean-Luc Bohé, a factor noted to have greatly contributed to its success.  Frederic Blehaut also shared with us that another critical success factor was the strong awareness campaign delivered through Mr. Patate.