THE AIB SSA 2018 CONFERENCE

Abstract

M-Pesa is a money transfer service executed by the use of mobile phones.It was introduced in the Kenyan market by Safaricom, Kenya‟s largest telecom provider, in 2007. The name M-Pesa, is derived fromthe Swahili word for money „pesa‟ and „M‟ and abbreviation for mobile. On its inception, it had around 8 million users. Barely five years afterits inception (2012) had M-pesa had a whopping 19.5 million mobile money users in Kenya.This constituted 83% of Kenya‟s adult population at that time, who were transacting approximately US $8 billion per year (approximately 24% of Kenyan GDP (GOK, 2012). Five years later, in 2017, „Safaricom stated that there are over 26 million M-Pesa users‟ (techwheez, 2017). Currently, it is estimated to have approximately 28 million users (both in Kenya and internationally).