During a recent workshop at the M-banking conference in Cairo, Egypt, a number of practitioners and interested parties discussed the state of mobile banking or-more properly-mobile transactions. One of the interesting insights that emerged comes from the experience of the Vodafone company Safaricom in Kenya with its M-PESA mobile transaction service.

Launched in March, 2007, the service has been an astounding success, reaching 2 million customers by May of 2008. New field research by Olga Morawczynski on use of M-PESA's by low-income customers in the Kibera slum of Nairobi-now posted in our resources section-sheds some light on both the how and why.

The dominant use of M-PESA by Kibera residents is to transfer money home to their native rural villages, underscoring the importance of internal remittances in virtually all developing countries. A user registers with an M-PESA agent, who establishes an electronic account for the customer.

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