From Afghanistan to Zambia, mobile network operators (MNOs) in developing countries are launching mobile money services at a rapid pace. Yet while their enthusiasm to enter this business is clear – to date 78 deployments have been launched and another 83 are being planned – their rationale for doing so is not. There’s no doubt that Safaricom’s runaway hit, M-PESA, is profitable. But Kenya represents somewhat of an anomaly – the perfect coalescence of latent demand, a dominant MNO and a progressive regulator. So the question remains for just about every MNO outside of Kenya: is there really any money in mobile money?
