Recent research by the Vodafone Group, Vodacom Group, Safaricom and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) indicates that the successful deployment and adoption of mobile financial services is associated with a positive impact on economic growth in developing markets, as it helps businesses cut costs, access credit to invest and connect with consumers who were previously excluded from financial services.
The econometric modeling research, which examined 49 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, concluded that countries with mobile money successfully had an annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita growth rate of up to 1 percentage point higher than countries where mobile money platforms had not been successful or had not been introduced.
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Based on previous World Bank research on the relationship between economic growth and reducing the number of people living in poverty, this per capita GDP growth implies that countries successfully adopting mobile money could reduce poverty by about of 2,6%.
The analysis was carried out as part of the companies' Africa Connected campaign, an initiative to drive sustainable development through collaboration and help remove obstacles that impede progress in Africa's key economic sectors.
