Africa has one of the largest and most rapidly growing numbers of mobile phone subscribers in the world, providing a unique opportunity for the region to accelerate financial inclusion through mobile financial services (MFS). While several countries such as Kenya and Tanzania have made considerable progress in this arena, the provision of MFS has not reached its full potential across Africa and is predominantly limited to ‘first-generation’ payment systems like money transfers or remittances, bill payments and loan repayments.

To find ways to unlock the region’s full potential in MFS, the Bank of Tanzania (BoT), the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) hosted The African Financial Inclusion Policy Forum: Scaling-up Financial Services through Mobile Technology, in Zanzibar, Tanzania, on March 1^st and 2^nd 2012. This event built on the insights of an earlier high-level forum at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. in May 2011 that examined how MFS could be used to enhance economic growth in Africa.