International payments via mobile phones are set to exceed $10bn (£6.17bn) for the first time this year, according to new research.
A report by Juniper Research predicted that about 400 million users worldwide will make payments on their handsets by 2018.
However, It found that only few companies such as eServGlobal’s HomeSend, Western Union and Moneygram, had seen a "significant" increase of payments via mobile phones, while other service providers said regulations had made it difficult to deploy these services.
Dr Windsor Holden, author of the report, said: "Service providers must first obtain licences for each remittance corridor; they face due diligence and risk assessment checks, which may in turn oblige them to introduce additional mechanisms to address any issues which emerge. All these processes are time consuming and expensive."
The report found that transaction volumes had surged in the airtime topup market, where service providers are not required to have money licences, while mobile money taxes in sub-Saharan Africa are threatening the growth of domestic money transfer services.
