Statistics from the Central Bank of Kenya indicate that Kenyans transferred over KES 1 trillion between January and June this year.

This represents a 26% growth as compared to the same period last year, when KES 872.1 billion was transacted.

This growth has been attributed to increasing competition in the mobile money market, with more customer-centered services being launched.

The most prominent example of these services being Safaricom’s Lipa na M-Pesa, an offering that allows subscribers to pay for goods and services directly from their mobile phones at no extra cost.

Other services that have contributed to this growth include Airtel Money, yuCash and Lipa Sasa by MobiKash, a service that is available to all subscribers from all the mobile service providers in Kenya.

Speaking to ITWeb Africa, Dorothy Mwikali, a financial advisory expert at investments firm Baobab Capital said that Kenya could witness more growth in mobile money transactions, even as more players are set to launch their services under new Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) licences.

“The mobile money arena witnessed a remarkable change, when the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) decided to award MVNO licences to new entrants, and I think it’s a matter of time before more competition in this sector is witnessed,” Mwikali told ITWeb Africa.

Back in April, the CA awarded MVNO licences to Finserve Africa Limited, a subsidiary of Equity bank, Tangaza’s Mobile Pay Limited and Zioncell Kenya Limited.

Equity’s entry into this sector has generated much attention among other players and analysts, based on the fact that it has over 8 million customers under its banking brand.

Mwikali also said that the success of Safaricom’s M-Pesa mobile transfer money service played a significant role in opening up the success floodgates of cashless transactions in the country and the world as a whole.

“M-Pesa definitely played a pivotal role in bringing in the trust and dependency that Kenyans needed at that time, something that allowed other players to launch their services in confidence,” Mwikali added.

“However, with the dynamic nature of the Kenyan economy, Kenyans no longer just need a service that only allows that to send money to each other, but need a service that will sort out-most if not all -of their money based transactions. Whoever continues to channel out new services that will cater for their daily transactional needs will always lead the pack,” Mwikali concluded.