A total of 34.7 million Kenyans are now actively using mobile money platforms, latest data from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) covering the quarter to June 2021 shows.

The fresh industry disclosures underscore the rising usage of mobile money amid the pandemic which was accelerated by the waiver of fees on transfers of amounts less than Kes1,000.

In the period under review, business to business transfers (B2B) made the bulk of mobile money transactions by value at Kes1.7 trillion.

Person to person transfers registered second closing the three-month period at slightly over Kes1 trillion.

The data from the communications authority on usage of mobile money mirrors reports by leading banks in Kenya that reported rising uptake of mobile-based bank transactions.

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In the half ending June, KCB’s total value of non-branch transactions grew by 75 per cent to Kes1.9 trillion from Kes1.07 billion realized at a similar period last year.

Equally, customers at Equity Group moved Kes1.76 trillion via fintech channels in the six months to June representing a 147 per cent rise from Kes715.2 billion transacted at a similar stage last year.

The communication's industry regulator disclosures also revealed that the number of active mobile-money subscriptions was estimated at 33.1 million at the end of March, this year.

The CA said Safaricom's cash transfer platform, M-PESA, continues to dominate the mobile-money space having for instance carried all the B2B and government to customer (G2C) transfers in the quarter.

In June, Safaricom launched M-PESA Super App effectively incorporating new features to improve user experience while also enabling myriad of transactions for millions of customers.

At the moment, M-PESA app has been getting nearly 50,000 downloads per day signaling increased adoption of the platform and usage of mobile money by increasing number of Kenyans.

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