In April 2007, Safaricom launched M-Pesa, a cellphone-based payment and money transfer service. The service is currently one the world’s most adverted in connection with mobile money payment system.
The “mobile money” service, also known as “M-Pesa,” allows its users to deposit and withdraw money from a network of agents — comprising airtime resellers as well as retail outlets who act as banking agents.
After its introduction, it quickly captured a significant market share for cash transfers and grew capturing 17 million subscribers by December 2011, in Kenya alone.
Cellphone subscriptions in Kenya are more than Kenya’s adult citizen-size. Some 80 percent of those owning a cellphone use M-Pesa.
M-Pesa in conjunction with western union has enabled the service to more than 80,000 western union agent locations in 45 countries across the globe including the US, Canada, Italy and the UK.
Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has it that, Kenyans living outside their home country sent US$642 million home in 2010 up from US$609 million sent in 2009, using this service.
There are approximately 60 million “mobile-money” users in the world meaning almost 1 in every 3 is a Kenyan, and half of all these mobile money transactions take place in Kenya.
M-Pesa has impacted Kenya both socially and economically since all movements that were previously made to pay or deposit money have been reduced to zero.
Safaricom is a leading mobile network operator in Kenya started in 1997. It is partially owned by Vodacom UK.
