Summary
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has long been engaged in the Tanzanian mobile money market with the aim of deepening and strengthening financial inclusion. A key outcome of this engagement so far has been the interoperability agreement reached in 2014, followed by continuous support and partnerships with key actors in the Tanzanian market.
IFC conducted a series of surveys to document the adoption and usage of mobile merchant payments.
The surveys gathered information for merchants and customers in three selected urban centers from 2019 to 2022. The report highlights evidence of the following:
- Mobile merchant payments showed tremendous growth. By 2022, a significant share of merchants in virtually all industries, and with different levels of financial access, accepted digital payments with some frequency.
- Customers and merchants were eager to use the service, which is broadly found to improve safety, speed, convenience, and cost of transactions.
- The Covid-19 pandemic did not only catalyze digitization of merchant payment systems but also digitization of merchants’ mode of operations and business transactions.
- There is a clear need for a stronger value proposition for broader adoption, especially for growing the volume of digital transactions through dedicated merchant payment platforms.
