In March 2007, Safaricom launched a mobile money service called M-Pesa. The idea was simple: let people send money using their phones without needing a bank account. Nobody expected what happened next. Within eight months, 1.1 million Kenyans had signed up.
Within three years, M-Pesa was processing transactions equivalent to 10 percent of Kenya's GDP. Kenyan farmers could receive payments in remote areas. Market traders no longer needed to carry cash. Domestic workers in Nairobi could send money home to their parents in the village.
M-Pesa did not just change banking. It changed what money could do.