Kenya’s mobile money transactions rose 11.2 percent in the first half of this year as compared to a similar period in 2018, the apex bank said in a report released on Wednesday.
The East African nation’s citizens transacted 2.14 trillion shillings (20.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of the year, up from 18.8 billion dollars in the first six months of 2018, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) said.
The rise in transactions points to growing use of the technology by Kenyans as service providers come up with innovative ways to transact, putting mobile money at the center of all sectors of the economy.
The bulk of the transactions in the first half of the year were done in January and March, where Kenyans moved 3.6 billion dollars.
On the other hand, the least of the transactions were in February and June, where usage stood at 3.2 billion dollars and 3.4 billion dollars respectively, according to the apex bank.
The number of agents working in the sector continued to surge to hit 222,484 in June, up from 197,286 in a similar period in 2018.
Similarly, the number of subscribers stood at 46 million in June, who carried out an average of 140 million transactions monthly, up from 42.3 million in at the end of June 2018.