Insurance is the least adjacent financial service offered by Mobile money Providers (MMPs) after credit and savings, even though it grew last year to 28% compared to 19% in 2023, a new GSMA report reveals.
- •As of June 2024, 44% of survey respondents offered credit services to their customers.
- •Savings is the second-most offered adjacent financial service with a third of respondents offering the service.
- •Demand-side data from the 2023 and 2024 GSMA Consumer Surveys shows that the percentage of customers using mobile money to pay for insurance products has grown in several countries.
“As part of efforts to offer a holistic service to customers, more mobile money providers are looking to diversify use cases beyond payments. Of those who provide insurance, 85% offer life or funeral cover and health insurance. Mobile money remains an important payment channel for insurance premiums, too,” notes the study.
The number of customers who used mobile money to pay for insurance in 2024 compared to 2023 grew significantly in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria. Modest annual rises were observed in Pakistan and Uganda. Despite a lack of data from 2023, around 15% of customers in Egypt and 19% in Tanzania used mobile money to pay for an insurance product in 2024.
“Mobile money-enabled insurance services tend to follow a formula: most MMPs that offer insurance partner with an insurance underwriter or technical service provider (or both). Partnerships with underwriters are necessary for licensing and risk carrying, while technical service providers design microproducts,” GSMA adds in the report.
In 2023, Airtel Money launched six insurance products in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
In November 2024, Safaricom acquired an insurance licence from the Insurance Regulatory Authority of Kenya. Through M-PESA, Safaricom plans to offer insurance products to its 30 million customers, starting with device insurance.
In 2024, Vodacom M-PESA in Mozambique began offering Hollard Insurance’s third-party motor insurance product, allowing customers to buy policies lasting between seven and 365 days.
The study says savings is the second fastest-growing mobile money-adjacent financial service, with 34% of MMPs offering savings – up from 23% in 2023. As a result, the cumulative number of unique customers who transferred funds to a savings account grew by 80% between September 2023 and June 2024.
This includes customers using a dedicated interest-bearing savings account-where regulations permit-or others who use mobile money accounts as a reliable store of value.
Data from 2023 and 2024 shows that the number of customers who used mobile money to take out a loan grew by 10 percentage points or more in Ethiopia, India, Pakistan and Uganda. Significant increases were seen in Indonesia, Nigeria and Bangladesh too.
