For the last six years, the Mobile Money Programme has been collecting and analysing industry data in order to track the industry’s progress, as well as to provide groundbreaking insights on financial inclusion, ecosystem development and the evolution of mobile money within digital financial services. Earlier this year, we published the Decade Edition of the State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money which was an industry-first retrospective. Today, we are delighted to be releasing another industry first: a comprehensive data source called the Global Mobile Money Dataset. This dataset has been built to enable increased access of mobile money data to support providers and the wider industry in enhancing performance and operational efficiency.

The Global Mobile Money Dataset is a MS Excel workbook combining various data sources that the Programme has been collecting since its inception, such as the Mobile Money Deployment Tracker, the Global Adoption Survey of Mobile Financial Services and the GSMA Mobile Money Estimates & Forecasts. Historical data is available over the past decade, from December 2006 to December 2016, at a regional level and sub-regional level (where sharing such data does not reveal confidential information shared via past Global Adoption Surveys). The dataset provides data points on a number of indicators broken down into four main categories:

• Availability of mobile money services: The number of live mobile money services between 2001-2016, broken down by region
• Accessibility of mobile money services: The number of registered and active agents between December 2006-2016, broken down by region
• Adoption of mobile money services: The number of registered and active mobile money accounts between December 2006-2016, broken down by region
• Usage of mobile money services: The volume and value of transactions for different products between December 2006-2016, on a global level

Alongside the Decade Edition of the State of the Industry report and this new dataset, we will be sharing regional analyses throughout the year which provide a deep dive into the regional nuances, best practices and challenges. Last month, we published a blog on mobile money in Latin America and shared our analysis on how the region has evolved in recent years. This week, to mark the first-ever Mobile 360 event in West Africa, we have also published a deep dive into the West African mobile money market. Additionally, a forthcoming analysis on the adoption and the evolution of mobile money across Sub-Saharan Africa will be released this summer.

The 2017 Mobile Money Dataset will be available soon.