Growing adoption of mobile money services in Kenya resulted in double-digit year-on-year growth in the value of transactions over the first eight months of 2019, figures from the Central Bank of Kenya showed.

Official statistics showed the sum transferred using mobile money and payment services topped KES2.87 trillion ($27.7 billion) in the period to end-August, up 10.3 per cent on the same period of 2018.

Local newspaper Business Daily reported several factors contributed to the growth, in particular growing use of mobile to pay bills or transfer funds.

The newspaper also cited an increase in the number of mobile money agents in the country: the central bank’s figures showed there were 222,479 agents at the close of the recent period, up from 202,627 at end-August 2018.

Mobile money accounts increased from 43.6 million at end-August 2018 to 54.8 million, with the number of transactions rising from 149.5 million to 151.8 million.

Business Daily noted an increasing number of merchants in the country now prefer to conduct transactions using mobile services, due to concerns over the safety of physical payments.