From The Register
“Vodafone-owned mobe operator Safaricom runs M-Pesa, the poster child for mobile payments. It has revolutionised the lives of people who were so poor that the banks were not interested in serving them.
However, having become the dominant force in the Kenyan economy, the banks quickly moved with the regulators to ensure that the success of a non-bank organisation offering banking services was not replicated anywhere else.
Of course, this was dressed up with plenty of stick along the lines of “funding terrorism”, “money laundering” and “know your customer”, alongside carrots of “co-operation” and “responsibility”. The truth is that nowhere has been as successful with mobile payments as Kenya has, thanks to bank-inspired regulation hampering progress throughout the rest of the world.
Caught off-guard, Tim Murdoch, the architect of M-Pesa, told me: “It worked because they didn’t see us coming”. In truth, Vodafone didn’t see the exceptional success of M-Pesa coming either.”
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