According to an industry study released at the 2013 Mobile World Congress on Wednesday, the use of "mobile money" is witnessing a worldwide boom; with millions of people using their mobile devices to make payments, rather than paying in cash or using credit cards.

Going by the statistics shared in the study carried out by the mobile operators' industry association, GSMA, mobile devices were actively used by over 30 million people for making payments in 2012.

Highlighting the increasing use of "mobile money" the world over, the study revealed that in the month of June last year, there were nearly 224.2 million "mobile money" transactions worldwide, accounting for a total of $4.6 billion
(3.5 billion euros).

With the study, based on a worldwide survey, noting that Africa and Asia are leading the "mobile money" boom, the findings revealed that in countries like Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania and Uganda, the number of mobile money accounts surpassed the number of traditional bank accounts.

In the wake of the study's findings that, on average each month during the 2012 third quarter, the pace of "mobile money" transactions exceeded the 196.3 million transactions performed by PayPal customers, Kenya's telecommunications regulator CCK said: "The mobile money transfer service has become a key payments and transaction tool, mainly due to its easy use of applications, convenience and low cost value propositions."