The Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) says 75 percent of mobile money transactions are largely used for airtime top-up and cash in/cash out, a development information and communications technology ( ICT) and fintech experts argue is a huge let down.
The RBM National Payment Systems (NPS) Report 2025 shows that although the mobile money subscriber base has grown since its launch in 2012, the usage case is worrisome as merchants’ payments contributed only 7.7 percent of K37.9 trillion total value transactions in 2025.
But the experts say this highlights existing gaps in the payment landscape as it shows that mobile money still lacks the element of conversion of access into habitual, accepted, trusted and low friction digital payment use.
Reads the report in part: “In 2025, mobile money transaction volumes rose by 31.6 percent to 2.4 billion, up from 1.8 billion in 2024. Transaction values nearly doubled, increasing by 94 percent to K37.9 trillion from K19.5 trillion, underscoring strong growth in both usage and value.
The report further said despite strong growth in usage, mobile money use cases remain concentrated, with airtime top‑ups and cash‑in/cash‑out accounting for 42 and 33.1 percent of transactions, respectively.
The report further shows that although mobile money subscription hit 19.9 million in 2025, only 8.9 million were able to record a transaction in a space of 30 days, representing 48 percent which also highlights demand challenges.
In an interview on Tuesday, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) expert Bram Fudzulani said the trend shows that Malawi’s mobile money problem is not access.
“The policy response, therefore, has to move from subscriber growth to ecosystem design with a focus on issues such as merchant acceptance, pricing, interoperability, recurring payment rails, literacy and reliability,” he said.
Fudzulani said there is a need to rebalance pricing and incentives toward payments instead of withdrawals.
“Mobile money providers and the regulator should make it cheaper and simpler to pay merchants than to cash out, while being careful not to create exclusion,” he said.
In a separate interview, fintech expert Arthur Muyepa said mobile money adoption remains shallow due to limited end-to-end digital journeys, low trust and weak merchant integration.
“Most people still only use it as cash in and cash out service because we simply don’t have enough online services to build the behaviour that instill trust,” he said.
Muyepa, who is also PawaPay country manager for Malawi, Lesotho, Namibia and Botswana, said in other markets such as Ethiopia, mobile money is embedded into daily life transactions, such as public transport, fuel market purchases, school fees and utilities subscription services.
Consumers Association of Malawi executive director John Kapito said while mobile money service was a game changer at inception in terms of financial inclusion, its user case is being affected by high transaction costs, connectivity challenges and unreliability because of its vulnerability to fraud.
