NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Friday, November 21, 2014

Snapchat may be the latest application with a new mobile payment feature launched this week, but the idea that made Snapcash possible was spawned more than seven years ago in Africa.

When M-Pesa came on the scene in 2007 — a money transfer system devised by Vodafone and Kenya-based Safaricom – it sparked a mini-revolution.

With the touch of a button, relatives in Nairobi could transfer cash instantly to their remote up-country families without the need for bank accounts, bureaucracy, and sometimes long journeys to settle accounts.