Kenya has been a trailblazer in mobile banking since launching its M-PESA mobile money service in 2007. Within six years, three quarters of all Kenyan adults had used the service, including 70% of those in rural areas, and – astonishingly – over 40% of Kenya’s GDP was passing through M-PESA.88 Worldwide, 5.5 billion people are expected to be using mobile phones by 2018, and mobile banking will come as part of the package.89 In essence, it will soon be feasible to create a phone book of the world’s ‘bottom billion’ and to text digital cash directly to them.
