Mobile banking product M-Shwari has hit a major milestone by reaching 10 million accounts, just two years after the virtual banking product was launched.
M-Shwari, a joint partnership between CBA and Safaricom, signed their 10 millionth customer yesterday with the bank revealing the mobile financial product has handled a total of Sh153 billion.
Commercial Bank of Africa CEO Isaac Awuondo says the milestone has shattered the myths about how to scale innovation in banking to expand financial inclusion by offering a simple and affordable model.
“M-Shwari is leading the revolution towards a cash-light economy in East Africa, and today it ranks as one of the world’s most successful full-service mobile banking deployment that has managed to reach scale in just over 2 years,” said Awuondo.
The bank says M-Shwari has extended unsecured loans totaling Sh29 billion, processing an average of 50,000 loans per day based on a mobile phone based credit scoring system.
The demographic indicators show, 59 percent of M-Shwari customers are male while women account for 41 percent of the customer base, with the highest usage witnessed among 24-35 year age group. Women are however using the savings product more while men over of 40 years are saving at a higher rate than their younger male counterparts.
Awoundo says the growth of M-Shwari affirms the trend in Africa of the growing convergence between the financial services and telecommunications sectors.
“This is a great catalyst to accelerate financial inclusion amongst the world’s under-served populations.”
