July 2026: 406.8m wallet transactions, 26% above July 2025, with each one worth 5% more

July 31, 2026

Wordless fine-line illustration: A wide highway bridge of light connecting rows of small kiosks to a distant bank tower, with a single truck-sized parcel of light crossing for every handful of small ones, while a lone dusty ATM sits at the roadside

Seven months in, Mozambique’s wallets have already handled 89% of last year’s transaction count.

Mozambique’s electronic money wallets processed 406.8 million transactions worth MT287.4bn in July 2026, according to the Banco de Moçambique monthly statistical summary. A year earlier, the same series recorded 324.0 million operations and MT218.8bn, so count is up 26% and value up 31% in twelve months.

Value grew faster than count, which means the average operation is getting larger: MT707 in July 2026 against MT675 in July 2025, a rise of 5%. Cumulatively, the seven months to July reached 2,589 million operations and MT1.76tn, equal to 89% of 2025’s full-year count of 2,894 million and 71% of its MT2.47tn.

July by operation

Every line grew on June; transfers now exceed 224 million a month.

Transfers were 224.5 million operations worth MT154.4bn, an average of MT688. Deposits were 99.8 million and MT79.6bn, an average of MT798, and withdrawals 54.1 million and MT49.8bn, an average of MT920. Payments for services were 28.4 million operations worth MT3.7bn, at MT129 each.

Compared with June, count rose 4.7% and value 3.9%; the daily pace, from 12.95 million to 13.12 million, rose 1.3%, since July has a day more. Bank cards in circulation stand at 3,729,916, up from 3,698,869 in June.

Withdrawals are the operation to watch for pressure on agents. At MT920 they cost an agent 16% more in notes than the MT798 deposit brings in, and the withdrawal average has risen from MT795 in January. Cash entering the wallets still outran cash leaving by MT29.8bn in July, a ratio of 1.6 by value, so the system is not short of cash overall, only unevenly placed.

The year-on-year comparison and why ticket size rose

A bigger average ticket points to wallets moving into higher-value uses.

In 2025 the average operation was about MT854 across the year, inflated by December, when wallets moved MT290bn. Ordinary months ran lower, and July 2025 at MT675 is a fair like-for-like base. That July 2026 sits at MT707 says the wallet is carrying somewhat larger movements, whether trade payments, remittances or business float, without shedding small ones: payments for services still average MT129.

The mechanism is a mix shift. Withdrawal and deposit tickets have both risen through 2026, and transfers are around MT690. When the small end stays put and the middle grows, the average lifts. It is not proof of merchants adopting wallets; the payments-for-services line is 7% of operations and under 1.5% of value.

Infrastructure behind it

The wallet gains coincide with a shrinking cash-machine network.

The Club of Mozambique reported in 2025 that the number of cash machines had fallen for a fifth consecutive year, and 360 Mozambique reported on 24 July 2026 that the central bank’s 2025 financial inclusion report counted 446,604 non-bank agents at year-end, up 41.8%, while POS terminals fell 9.2% to 32,236.

The wallet has not needed the card network to grow. It uses agents as its branches and phones as its terminals, and with the Sistema de Pagamentos Instantâneos in operation since March it can now hand money to a bank account in seconds, as EDUC Invest described at the launch.

What a business does with a 26% year

Assume wallets are the default rail and set targets against the 2025 run-rate.

A company forecasting mobile collections for 2027 should note that the first seven months of 2026 already delivered 89% of the whole of 2025 by count. At the July pace of about 400 million a month, 2026 will finish near 4.8 billion operations, roughly two-thirds above 2025’s total, if the run-rate holds.

The action is to renegotiate wallet fees and settlement terms while volumes are rising. Businesses with large receivable books should ask their issuer for volume-tier pricing in the second half, and merchants should move at least one recurring payment stream, such as fees, subscriptions or instalments, onto a wallet prompt before year-end.

Finally, keep the seasonal shape in view. December 2025 moved MT290bn on its own. If December 2026 repeats that spike on a larger base, the last month of the year will test agent float and issuer capacity more than any month so far. Stress-test settlement and cash plans for it in the third quarter.