Mobile money (M-Pesa) and mobile payments (Apple Pay, Alipay)
Dinero móvil (M-Pesa) y pago con el móvil (Apple Pay, Alipay)
- Date
- 2007 · confidence high
- Place
- Safaricom/Vodafone, Nairobi, Kenya; Alipay, Hangzhou, China; Apple Pay, Cupertino (2014)
- Credited to
- Nick Hughes and Susie Lonie (Vodafone/Safaricom); Alibaba (mobile Alipay, 2009-2013); Apple
- Field
- Communication
What it is
Systems that turn the phone into a wallet and a bank, first by SMS in Kenya and later with QR codes and NFC. They brought banking to hundreds of millions of people without branches.
What it led to
- Financial inclusion in Africa and Asia
- The cashless society and China's super-apps
- Financial surveillance and central bank digital currencies
Built on
Made possible
- Ushahidi crowdsourced crisis mapping2008
- Pay-as-you-go solar home systems (M-KOPA)2012
- Unified Payments Interface (UPI)2016
- super-apps
- digital yuan
- branchless banking