Consumers are gradually ditching their financial institution accounts and shifting to mobile money due to the ubiquity and expanded utility of cellphone-based cash services, an analysis of these surveys reveals.

East African adults living in the poorest 40 per cent of households are more than twice as likely to have a dormant bank account compared with adults living in the richest 60 per cent of households, says the World Bank report.

The revelation that a quarter of East Africa’s bank accounts lie idle pours cold water on recent recruitment drives by financial institutions to sign up customers with promises of zero tariff accounts.