March 2026: MT129bn in wallet transfers, and no visible SPIM bump in the daily rate

March 31, 2026

Wordless fine-line illustration: A cross-section of a busy junction where three separate rivers of light, each in its own channel, are joined by a new straight canal that carries them across without stopping at the old stone ferry

The first month of instant payments changed the plumbing before it changed the totals.

Person-to-person transfers on Mozambique’s mobile wallets reached 191.8 million operations worth MT129.2bn in March 2026, according to the Banco de Moçambique monthly statistical summary. That is 10% more operations than February, but March has three more days. Per day, transfers ran at 6.19 million against 6.23 million in February, so the underlying pace was flat.

March is also the month the Sistema de Pagamentos Instantâneos de Moçambique (SPIM) began working. It went live on Monday 2 March, and the wallets did not respond with a step change. That is not a failure of the system; it is a lesson in what the wallet statistic measures.

The month in four lines

Every wallet operation grew in count, but none outpaced the calendar.

The four wallet operations totalled 364.8 million transactions worth MT245.6bn in March, an average of MT673. Deposits were 92.1 million operations and MT69.0bn; withdrawals 51.9 million and MT43.6bn; transfers 191.8 million and MT129.2bn; and payments for services 29.1 million and MT3.7bn, at MT129 each.

Against February, total operations rose 7.9% and value 9.4%. Daily volume slipped from 12.07 million to 11.77 million, and daily value from MT8.02bn to MT7.92bn. The month behaved like more days of the same activity.

The payments-for-services line is the one to watch for cash substitution. It grew to 29.1 million operations, but its value of MT3.7bn is 1.5% of the month, at an average of only MT129 a payment. Bills and merchants remain the small end of the wallet.

What SPIM did on day one

Fee-free, always-on transfers between banks and wallets, with mandatory entry for larger institutions.

The rules reported on 2 March exempt interbank transactions ordered by individuals from fees and commissions, with daily limits of MT200,000 for individuals and MT500,000 for legal entities. Credit institutions and electronic money institutions must take part if they have at least 5,000 active customers or accounts, or annual RTGS volumes above 10,000. According to the regulation summary from RSM, funds must reach the beneficiary within 25 seconds of the instruction.

All 15 commercial banks and 12 microbanks were reported as operating from that Monday, alongside the three wallet issuers, on a platform managed by the Sociedade Interbancária de Moçambique.

Why the totals did not jump

SPIM changes where transfers cross, not how many people want to send.

A wallet-to-wallet transfer inside one issuer never needed a bank, and it never charged much. The gain from SPIM arrives when a transfer used to hop through an agent, a cash-out and a second cash-in: a bank customer paying a wallet holder can now do it in one instruction. That substitutes one kind of operation for another, and the Quadro 16 wallet table does not capture bank-side instructions.

The bank cards in circulation, at 3,581,441 in the same summary, dipped 11,660 on February. SPIM does not need a card. It needs an account and a phone number, and that is where the customer base already is.

So the test for SPIM is a mix test. If bank-to-wallet transfers are replacing cash-out then cash-in cycles, withdrawals should fall relative to transfers over the coming months. In March, withdrawals were 51.9 million against 191.8 million transfers, a ratio of 0.27, which is the number to compare.

The implication for merchants and payroll

Ask for instant settlement now; the fee argument for cash has gone.

For a business that pays wages or suppliers in cash to avoid transfer charges, the fee barrier for individual transfers disappeared on 2 March up to MT200,000 a day. Payroll above that ceiling, or any corporate payment, still faces the MT500,000 entity limit and its own pricing.

The action for a finance director is to trial one weekly supplier payment or payroll batch through a bank app on SPIM before the end of April, measure the settlement time against the promised 25 seconds, and price the cash alternative, including agent fees and security, against it.