Mozambique, February 2025: wallets took in MT17.7bn more cash than they paid out

February 28, 2025

In the shortest month of the year, deposits at e-money agents outran withdrawals by half, and that gap is where online selling starts.

Mozambicans put MT52.1bn of cash into electronic money wallets in February 2025 and took out MT34.4bn, according to the Banco de Moçambique’s e-money institution statistics. The difference, about MT17.7bn, stayed inside the wallet system in a month with only 28 days, and it is the pool of spendable balance that any marketplace or online shop in Mozambique draws on.

Nothing about that number requires a bank account or a card. The 236.3 million e-money transactions of the month, worth MT166.5bn, ran across a network of 324,797 agents that grew by 3,781 in four weeks. For a seller, the useful question is how balance gets into a wallet, how it moves, and what it costs to get it out.

How balance is created

Cash-in is the issuing event, and the agent is the issuer’s counter.

When a customer hands notes to an agent, the agent transfers electronic money from its own wallet to the customer’s. February saw 67.1 million such deposits, averaging MT777 each. Withdrawals reverse the flow: 40.6 million of them, averaging MT849, so the typical cash-out was about 9% larger than the typical cash-in.

Because cash-outs are larger but fewer, the money spends more of its time as a balance. Transfers between wallets numbered 108.6 million and carried MT76.9bn, or 46% of the month’s value, while payments for services (utilities, airtime, school fees and similar) accounted for only 20.0 million operations and MT3.0bn. Wallets are still used mainly to send value, not to settle bills. That pattern suggests a customer base that trusts the wallet to hold value between paydays and to reach family in another province, but has not yet moved its recurring bills onto the same rail.

The pipes underneath

One switch connects the banks and the wallets, and the wallets now supply most of its traffic.

All commercial banks and e-money institutions were connected to a single national network by 19 November 2023, as reported by AIM, with the SIMOrede platform supplied by Euronet. At the SIMO anniversary in 2024, its board president Maria Majimeja said the three e-money institutions accounted for 80% of transaction volume on the network, with 16 commercial banks sharing the rest.

That architecture is why a wallet balance can be spent at a bank-served merchant, and why a seller can be paid by a customer whose wallet belongs to a rival operator.

What the bank channels added

Cards and internet banking moved differently from wallets in the month.

The electronic-banking workbook shows 35,001 POS terminals, up from 34,841 in January, and 5.26 million card payments worth MT14.8bn, an average of MT2,824. ATMs numbered 1,388 and dispensed 7.4 million withdrawals worth MT25.1bn. Internet banking recorded 1.94 million transfers, more than in January, but their value fell to MT113.9bn, so the average dropped from about MT71,000 to MT58,574.

The monthly summary published in March put e-money subscriber records at 20.67 million and bank accounts in meticais at roughly 6.18 million. The wallet base slipped slightly from January’s 20.76 million even as agents multiplied, a sign that subscriber counts include dormant or duplicate lines and that activity per wallet is the better guide.

What an online seller does with this

Price for the wallet, and plan for the cost of leaving it.

A marketplace or online shop that accepts wallet payment is selling into the MT17.7bn balance pool, not into bank deposits. Prices anchored to the MT700 to MT850 range of a typical deposit or withdrawal convert easily, while items well above that force the buyer through several top-ups or a bank rail.

The seller’s own cash-out costs matter as much as the sale. With the average withdrawal about MT849 and agents counted in the hundreds of thousands, a merchant should settle to a bank account and pay suppliers by transfer, keeping agent withdrawals for petty cash. Sellers in the north and centre, where bank branches are scarce, should also list the agent locations nearest their pickup points, since a buyer who can cash in close to the counter completes the purchase. Set up that settlement rule before the first order, not after the first bill.