Zambia’s central bank hailed the impact of partnerships between mobile money service providers, as the country booked a rapid increase in the number of accounts and agents during 2018, IT Web Africa reported.

At a launch event for the Bank of Zambia annual industry report, the organisation’s deputy governor Bwalya Ngandu attributed increases to service provider collaborations. He added the increase in agent numbers would allow a greater number of people to access the service and aid the government’s push for financial inclusion.

Its statistics showed the number of mobile money agents in Zambia stood at 47,000 by the end of 2018 compared with 23,000 in the previous year. The number of mobile money accounts increased from 2.3 million at the end of 2017 to 4.3 million in 2018.

World Population Review estimates the country’s populace at 18 million.

Zambia’s two largest mobile operators, local units of Airtel and MTN both supply mobile money services. In April 2018, MTN announced a concerted effort to up the number of agents in the country to expand usage of its platform.

State-owned Zamtel also supplies standard mobile money services through its Kwacha brand and smartphone mobile wallet app ZamPay.