M-Shwari is a mobile banking service offered through M-PESA and run by the Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) and Safaricom. It was launched in November 2012 and it offers both savings and loan products. Customers can save from as little as Ksh. 1 and can access loans of a minimum of Ksh. 100.
Since it’s launch, M-Shwari has registered impressive growth. Here are 5 things that tell the M-Shwari story so far.
1. Customer Numbers
M-Shwari has registered 7 million customers in the 17 months it has been in existence.
The customer numbers grew over time as follows
November 2012 – January 2013 – 1,555,996
February 2013 – April 2013 – 2,939,723
May 2013 – July 2013 – 3,998,338
August 2013 – October 2013 – 4,786,762
November 2013 – January 2014 – 5,026,955
Feb 2014 – April 2014 – 7,000,713
2. Customer Gender
Male (61%) – 4,270,068
Female (39%) – 2,730,045
3. Customer Age
16-24 – 31%
25-34 – 35.5%
34-55 – 26.5%
Over 55 – 7%
4. Customer Behaviour
Women are utilizing the savings product more.
Men over 40 are also saving more.
26-30 year olds hold the greatest value of loans outstanding across all genders (Men account for 71% of the loans in this age group).
5. Transactions and Loans
In the two years of its existence M-Shwari has had transactions worth Ksh. 156 Bn and loans worth KES 13 Bn have been given to customers.