South Africa’s Vodacom is teaming up with local banking group Nedbank to launch the mobile money service – M-PESA. The service, which was originally created as a pilot funded jointly by Vodafone and the UK Department for International Development [DFID] Financial Deepening Challenge Fund, has proved immensely successful in Kenya, Tanzania and Afghanistan, and has managed to attract more than 10 million customers to date.
Vodacom is obviously happy to introduce the service, hoping to repeat the success in South Africa. The company’s Managing Director, Shameel Joosub, said that he’s confident M-PESA is going to change the lives of “unbanked” South Africans. “M-PESA has a successful track record in other markets. With the backing of Nedbank and Vodafone, as well as the power of the public’s trust in the Vodacom brand, all of the signs are there that M-PESA is going to revolutionize the way South Africans transfer, share and spend their money,” he added.
Personally I’m a big fan of mobile money services and can’t wait to see them being adopted on a wider scale, all around the world…
[Via: CellularNews]