February 2026: 12.1m wallet transactions a day, the final month before SPIM

February 28, 2026

A 28-day month gives the cleanest daily baseline for Mozambique’s instant-payment era.

Mozambique’s electronic money wallets handled 338.0 million transactions worth MT224.5bn in February 2026, according to cumulative tables in the Banco de Moçambique monthly statistical summary. Because February has 28 days, that is 12.1 million transactions and MT8.0bn a day, against 10.4 million and MT6.4bn a day in January: 16% more operations and 25% more value for each day of trading.

The month closed with a regulatory change in the diary. On 25 February the central bank issued Aviso 1/GBM/2026, which sets up an instant retail payment scheme known as SPIM and requires it to run around the clock, including weekends and holidays. February’s daily rate is the last one recorded before that system, so it is the baseline against which its effect will be judged.

The daily rate is the honest number

Month totals hide the calendar; a per-day figure exposes the trend.

January’s 321.3 million operations and February’s 338.0 million look like growth of 5.2%. Divided by days in the month, the increase is 16.5%. Value rose 12.6% in total and 24.6% per day, to MT8.0bn.

Transfers led again with 174.4 million operations worth MT115.6bn, an average of MT663. Deposits reached 87.1 million operations and MT65.1bn, an average of MT747, and withdrawals 48.3 million and MT40.2bn, an average of MT833. Cash entering wallets outran cash leaving by 1.62 to one on value, close to January’s ratio, so the pattern is stable rather than a one-month accident.

The per-day jump has a simple reading. February’s volume was not lifted by a regulatory or pricing event, since SPIM’s rules were only issued in the last week of the month, so the growth reflects ordinary use. The comparison with January’s lower daily rate also shows how much of a wallet month depends on how many days are in it.

What SPIM will and will not touch

The rulebook targets bank-to-wallet and bank-to-bank transfers, not the agent’s till.

According to the law-firm summary of the regulation, the operator is the Sociedade Interbancária de Moçambique (SIMO), the rules apply from 2 March, individuals pay no fees on interbank transfers, and daily ceilings are MT200,000 for individuals and MT500,000 for legal entities.

The wallet statistic in this article counts operations on the electronic money institutions’ own books. A transfer between two M-Pesa customers stays inside one issuer whatever SPIM does. What SPIM changes is the crossing point: a bank account sending to a wallet, or one wallet sending to another issuer’s wallet, becomes a fee-free instant instruction. Watch for that in the next months as a shift in the mix, not necessarily in the total.

Cards did not move

The plastic base shrank slightly while wallets accelerated.

The Resumo puts cards in circulation at 3,593,101 in February, down from 3,609,579 in January, a fall of 16,478. Wallet subscribers, the Banco de Moçambique’s proxy for clients, stood at 24.8 million against 25.0 million a month earlier. Both series are counts of accounts held, so a small decline says clean-up of inactive records as much as customers leaving.

The consequence for a merchant is that the number of people who can pay you by wallet is roughly seven times the number who can pay by card, and February’s daily flow shows they use it.

For product teams, the practical reading is that acquisition is no longer the constraint. The scarce resource is a reason for an existing wallet holder to pay a merchant rather than cash out first, which is a design and pricing problem, not a coverage one.

What to record before March

Capture your own February numbers now, because the comparison will be asked for.

A retailer, utility or school should log its own February wallet receipts by day, split by whether the payer used an agent, a bank app or USSD. SPIM’s stated aim is to make funds available to the beneficiary almost immediately, so businesses that reconcile weekly today should be prepared to reconcile daily.

The action is simple: fix a February baseline of receipts per day, then compare March, the first month of SPIM operation, against the industry’s own 12.1 million a day.