Almost two-thirds of Nigerians are aware of mobile money services while well under a third are registered for the cash transfer service in the country.

This is according to a September 2013 Phillips Consulting survey administered manually and electronically using questionnaires that received responses from a total of 1987 Nigerians.

And according to the study, 37% do not know what mobile money is, while the majority (63%) know about the service.

Phillips Consulting says knowledge of mobile money is strongest among Nigerians aged 26 – 35 years (31%) and those who earn more than N1 million monthly (89%).

Major sources of information on mobile money are obtained from respondents’ banks (32%), telecommunication providers (14%), newspapers (14%) and friends (14%).

Interestingly, the study says that those who know the least about mobile money are younger than 18 years (67%), and earn less than N50,000 monthly (47%).

Phillips Consulting says there appears to be a direct link between the level of earnings and knowledge of mobile money in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the researchers say that of the total number of respondents who know about mobile money, only 29% are registered with any of the mobile money operators (MMOs) in Nigeria.

The leading MMO among registered respondents is GTBank, as 41% of respondents said they use mobile money services from this financial institution.

The findings also reveal that registration is highest among those aged between 26 – 35 years (16%).

The study says the majority of respondents (71%) are not registered mobile money users primarily owing to a lack of information.

But of the total number of respondents who are registered with an MMO, 31% have never used the service.

“Knowledge of mobile money among respondents appears to be strong but adoption is low as shown by the significantly low percentage of those who are registered and actively using the service,” says the research report.

“The major reason for this weak adoption is information deficiency on mobile money services.
This implies a need for more efficient mobile money educative initiatives in the country,” adds Phillips Consulting.

Other findings of the research include that more of the respondents had mobile phones than bank accounts, implying a high potential of adoption of mobile money in Nigeria.

The Phillips Consulting study comes after Nigerian opinion poll and research organisation NOI Polls earlier this year conducted a snap study with just over 1,000 Nigerians that said about 60% of respondents are ‘unaware’ of mobile money in the country.

In August 2011, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) licensed 16 banks and other financial institutions to establish mobile money services throughout the country.

But the service has not taken off in Nigeria, which has a population of over 160 million, in the same way as it has in Kenya.

The likes of M-Pesa has been a runaway success in Kenya as the number of mobile money subscribers in the East African country stands at 23.2 million, according to the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK).