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Tracing the roots of M-PESA
By Lilian Mutegi
With 18.2 million customers and currently contributing up to 43% of Kenya’s GDP, M-PESA has been seen as a disruptive innovation that threatens incumbent businesses as well as sparking new businesses and entrepreneurship.
This has seen two researchers - Nicholas P.Sullivan, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Emerging Market Enterprises and Tony K. Omwansa, a lecturer at the university of Nairobi – come together to trace the roots of M-Pesa from 2003 up to date in a book that was launched yesterday at the Michael Joseph Centre.
The book tittled “Money Real Quick-The story of M-PESA” is the first that documents the profound impact that Safaricom’s mobile money transfer services M-PESA has had on the lives of users in Kenya.
According to the book, M-PESA platform moves Kshs 77.3 billion a month in peer to peer transactions. A further Kshs 9.9 billion is moved in person to business transactions while person to business transactions account for Kshs 7.6 billion a month.
Using case studies, the book chronicles the evolution of M-PESA from its original concept as a micro finance tool to a complex financial transactions platform that is leading Kenya’s cash-lite agenda. The book features the accounts of those who worked on the service and how it grew to become the most successful mobile money solution in the world.
The 192-volume has 9 chapters beginning with the Introduction, The Innovation, Human Network, Banks Disrupted, Impact at the Base of the Pyramid, Inching towards “Financial Inclusion”, Swahili Silicon Valley, Change is Not Easy, Kenya on Stage and the final chapter - Cash is the Enemy.
It is a journalistic narrative-driven story about the birth and development of M-Pesa and its impact on the lives of Kenyans. A secondary mandate is also to show the ubiquity of mobile money that allows the potential for financial innovation in developing countries especially those at the base of the pyramid.
At some point in the book, the authors mention Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya. “Even in Kibera slum, on the outskirts of Nairobi, where over 250,000 people live cheek by jowl in highly unsanitary conditions and makeshift housing is a beehive of M-Pesa activity. There are very few bank branches but M-Pesa agents line in the dirt streets: People queue up to fill their phones with e-money or even collect cash. Savings group once a high touch face to face phenomenon much like money lending, have in many cases adopted M-Pesa as a means of mobilizing lump sums to lend amongst themselves,” state the authors.
The book was initiated by Wiebe Boer, former director Rockerfeller Donation in 2010 and took 4 years to complete using funds provided by the same foundation. It is published by Guardian Books.
“Money Real Quick-The Story of M-Pesa”, will be available to the public via Amazon. It can also be bought from local bookshops at a price of €9.99 which is equivalent to Kshs. 1,165.63.
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