According to a report focused on mobile money released by MEF, the global community for mobile content and commerce, mobile money users are 26% more likely to purchase via mobile. Globally, 91 % made some form of mobile purchase in 2013 as opposed to 65 % of all mobile consumers.

Mobile money users also spend more on individual purchases. They are 10 % less likely to make low value payments and 14 % more likely to make mid-value purchases.

In Africa, the ‘mobile-only’ culture means the mobile money account is the bank account. Globally, 66 % of mobile media users use some form of mobile banking. In Kenya, for example, it’s 92 %.

The study also reveals the importance of network speed to the uptake of mobile money. A quarter of users claim they don’t make mobile payments because ‘the network is too slow’. That might help explain why fewer than one in seven mobile media users have made some form of mobile payment.

Conversely, those connected to 4G networks are much more engaged: almost two in three (64 %) have made a mobile payment.

MEF has headquarters in the UK and operational chapters and offices in Africa, Asia, EMEA, Latin America Middle East and North America and was established in 2000.