Agents made Africa’s mobile-money revolution possible. Its success may be their undoing
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskMobile money is a system that allows people without bank accounts to transfer money using their phones. Agents are its stevedores, loading and unloading cash. There are now 3m of them in Africa, roughly as many as the number ofs in the world. Mobile operators pay them a commission on transactions, rather than employ them directly, placing agents in a contradiction: the more that money goes digital, the more uncertain their future.
Their rewards are dwindling. Although the volume of transactions is increasing, the number of agents is rising faster. The average monthly amount of money cashed in and out by agents in sub-Saharan Africa fell from $11,700 in December 2016 to $9,900 five years later, according to the, which represents mobile operators. In Ivory Coast the number of mobile-money accounts serviced by each agent shrank by two-thirds over the same period.
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