Despite being the global epicentre of mobile money innovation, Sub-Saharan Africa remains home to tens of millions of adults who do not own a mobile money account. A new World Bank report disclosed.
According to the Global Findex Database 2025, Sub-Saharan Africa is widely celebrated as the birthplace of mobile money, a technology that has transformed how people send, receive, save, and borrow money using basic mobile phones.
“Yet, the region still accounts for one of the world’s largest concentrations of adults without mobile money accounts,” it said.
The report shows that while about 40 percent of adults in Sub-Saharan Africa had a mobile money account in 2024, up sharply from 27 percent in 2021, roughly 60 percent still do not.
The reasons, the report argues, are less about lack of awareness and more about deep structural barriers that continue to exclude large segments of the population.
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Poverty remains the biggest obstacle
According to the report, a lack of money is the single most common barrier to mobile money account ownership in the region.
For many low-income households, irregular earnings, subsistence livelihoods, and dependence on cash-based transactions reduce the perceived value of maintaining an account, even when services are widely available.
This challenge is compounded by affordability issues. Transaction fees, charges for cashing out, and the cost of maintaining an active SIM card can deter the poorest adults, reinforcing the perception that mobile money is not designed for very small or infrequent transactions.
In Nigeria, the World Bank Group has announced an estimate that 139 million in 2025 will be living in poverty despite the reforms of the federal government.
Mobile phone ownership gaps persist
Mobile money cannot function without a mobile phone, yet phone ownership itself remains uneven. The report finds that 40 percent of adults now own a mobile money account, up from 27 percent in 2021.
And those who do not have a financial account also do not own a mobile phone of any kind.
This creates a double barrier: adults who are financially excluded are often also digitally excluded.
Among those without phones, the cost of the device is cited as the primary obstacle. While basic phones are more affordable than smartphones, the report notes that even these can be out of reach for the poorest households, especially in rural areas. Without addressing device affordability, efforts to expand mobile money risk leaving behind the very groups they aim to serve.
The report disclosed that even when phones and accounts are available, digital capability remains a challenge. The report finds that only about half of mobile money account owners in Sub-Saharan Africa protect their phones with passwords, compared with much higher shares in other regions.
Limited digital literacy raises concerns about fraud, mistaken transfers, and scams, which in turn undermines trust in mobile financial services.
Trust issues are further reinforced by negative user experiences. Only about half of the adults in the region who sent money to the wrong person using mobile money reported getting it back, according to the report. Such experiences can discourage first-time users and lead dormant users to abandon their accounts.
A large untapped opportunity
Despite these challenges, the report points to a significant opportunity. In Sub-Saharan Africa, about a quarter of adults without accounts already own a mobile phone, have official ID, and have a SIM card registered in their own name, meaning they have all the prerequisites for mobile money adoption.
“Closing the gap will require coordinated action: reducing the cost of devices, expanding ID coverage, strengthening consumer protection, and designing low-cost products that reflect the financial realities of poor and rural households,” the World Bank argues.
