“After 100 years of banking, access to banking was less than 20%,” the moderator on the innovation track told the room at the Central Banking spring meetings in South Africa. “It is after using mobile technology we brought that to 86%.” 

The speaker was referring to Kenya, where M-PESA, the successful mobile phone payments, transfer and micro-financing service, was launched in 2007. In Kenya, financial technology firms and retailers need to partner with a bank to issue e-money. 

Mobile money has