Mozambique: Number of cash machines falls for fifth year in a row

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Mozambique: Number of cash machines falls for fifth year in a row

12:19 CAT | 17 Mar 2025

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Noticias]

ATM coverage in Mozambique fell again in 2024, for the fifth consecutive year, to the equivalent of 7.4 machines per 100,000 adults, according to central bank data Lusa consulted on Monday.

According to the Bank of Mozambique’s most recent report on financial inclusion indicators, in 2019 the country had 11 ATMs per 100,000 adults, but since then the number has been falling, reaching new lows last year, totalling 1,413.

The same trend can be seen with POS payment terminals, whose coverage was just over 229 per 100,000 adults in 2019, dropping every year to 190 at the end of last year, totalling 35,470 across the country.

In contrast, the number of digital wallet agents, Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs), has been growing every year, reaching a record 1,686 per 100,000 adults in 2024, up from 350 in 2019.

Mozambique currently has three Electronic Money Institutions, owned by the three mobile telecoms operators, which provide financial services via mobile phone, including money transfers between customers or payment for services.

This is a solution that makes it easier and more widespread for the population to access financial services, using only mobile phones and EMI agents on the street.

The number of EMI agents in Mozambique increased by another 12.2% in the first half of 2024, to more than 252,000, covering all 154 districts of the country.

Lusa previously reported that Mozambique’s government intends to tax the commissions of agents and EMIs, which already have almost 20 million accounts, according to official information.

According to a government document on the actions taken in 2024, last year, the government moved ahead with the process of “taxing the commissions” of agents and EMIs. It drew up the respective bill, which it has since submitted to the Parliament, although without providing any further details.

It added, however, that “data on their agents and superagents at national level has been made available” by two of the mobile wallet institutions, to create a database, with a view to “broadening the tax base and consequently increasing revenue collection in this segment of the digital economy”.

787 mobile wallet agents were also registered, “having been assigned a NUIT [tax identification number] and the start of their activity”.

The number of bank accounts in Mozambique grew by 10% in 2024, to a record 6.2 million, but in EMIs there are already more than three times as many, according to data from the central bank.

According to a previous statistical report by the Bank of Mozambique, the number of bank accounts in the country grew from 5,687,975 at the end of 2023 to 6,221,640 in December last year. However, this growth did not keep pace with the increase in EMIs, which grew by 18.5% in the same period to 19,870,700, almost three million more new accounts in a year.

Four years earlier, in 2020, these e-money accounts were almost half, at 10,833,801.

Source: Lusa