The M-Pesa Effect

In 2007, a service launched in Kenya that let people send money using basic phones, with no bank account and no branch visit. Within a few years, it had changed how a whole country moved money. Why did it happen there, and what does the rest of the world miss about it?

The M-Pesa Effect tells the story from the start, including the pilot that took an unexpected turn. You will see why Kenya, and not California, became the home of mobile money, and how the system works behind the simple menu. The book looks beyond M-Pesa to the wider African fintech explosion, and examines what regulation got right.

It then draws five lessons for Western finance, explores what comes after mobile money, and ends by showing you how to apply the M-Pesa lens to your own world, whether you work in finance, tech, policy, or simply want to understand how money is changing.