Africa’s mobile money agents face an uncertain future

Jackline Muheirwe was the only mobile-money agent in her patch of Kampala, the Ugandan capital. These days there are ten others within a minute’s walk, taking in and giving out cash from shopfronts or colourful kiosks. “You can’t make money out of it now,” she sighs. Business is down, despite her prime spot outside a courthouse. Since 2018 a tax on withdrawals has made things worse. She is lucky to earn 500,000 shillings ($133) a month in commission, less than half of what she once made.Mobile money is a system that allows people without bank accounts to transfer money using their phones. Agents are its stevedores, loading and unloading cash. There are now 3m of them in Africa, roughly as many as the number of s in the world. Mobile operators pay them a commission on transactions, rather than employ them directly, placing agents in a contradiction: the more that money goes digital, the more uncertain their future.