M-PESA (‘mobile money’ in Swahili) is the result of a collaboration which saw DFID seed funding early product development by Vodafone. Thanks to this partnership a simple but game-changing product – a mobile-phone based money transfer service – has succeeded in allowing millions of Kenya’s very poorest people to engage in the economy in ways they've never done before.
The number of Kenyan adults with access to financial services rocketed by nearly ten million in just three years.
Now, building on this success, Vodafone and the local Equity Bank have launched M-KESHO, a facility that is helping people to open savings accounts for the first time in their lives. This has inspired similar initiatives – with nearly 70 mobile money platforms across the world. And the M-PESA platform is now being used to pay policemen in Afghanistan.
Something so small is transforming lives on a massive scale.