M-Pesa

M-PESA
Operating areaKenya, Tanzania, South Africa, Afghanistan, Lesotho, DRC, Ghana, Mozambique, Egypt, Ethiopia.
MembersSafaricom
Founded2007
OwnerSafaricom
Websitewww.vodafone.com/m-pesa

M-PESA (M for mobile, PESA is Swahili for money) is a mobile phone-based money transfer service, payments and micro-financing service, launched in 2007 by Vodafone and Safaricom, the largest mobile network operator in Kenya.[1] It has since expanded to Tanzania, Mozambique, DRC, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt, Afghanistan, South Africa and Ethiopia. The rollouts in India, Romania, and Albania were terminated amid low market uptake. M-PESA allows users to deposit, withdraw, transfer money, pay for goods and services (Lipa na M-PESA, Swahili for "Pay with M-PESA"), access credit and savings, all with a mobile device.[2]

The service allows users to deposit money into an account stored on their cell phones, to send balances using PIN-secured SMS text messages to other users, including sellers of goods and services, and to redeem deposits for regular money. Users are charged a fee for sending and withdrawing money using the service.[3]

M-PESA is a branchless banking service; M-PESA customers can deposit and withdraw money from a network of agents that includes airtime resellers and retail outlets acting as banking agents.

M-PESA spread quickly, and by 2010 had become the most successful mobile-phone-based financial service in the developing world.[4] By 2012, a stock of about 17 million M-PESA accounts had been registered in Kenya. By June 2016, a total of 7 million M-PESA accounts had been opened in Tanzania by Vodacom. The service has been lauded for giving millions of people access to the formal financial system and for reducing crime in otherwise largely cash-based societies.[5] However, the near-monopolistic providers of the M-PESA service are sometimes criticized for the high cost that the service imposes on its often poor users.

  1. ^ "CCK releases 2nd quarter ICT sector statistics for 2011/2012". Communications Commission of Kenya. 17 April 2012. Archived from the original on 17 August 2012.
  2. ^ Saylor, Michael (2012). The Mobile Wave: How Mobile Intelligence Will Change Everything. Perseus Books/Vanguard Press. p. 202; 304. ISBN 978-1593157203.
  3. ^ "M-PESA Tariff". 29 May 2015. Archived from the original on 25 November 2014.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference MIT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Mutiga, Murithi (20 January 2014). "Kenya's Banking Revolution Lights a Fire". The New York Times.