Contact-less payments using your mobile. And SMS?

This 6-minute animation tells the story of how M-PESA, the popular mobile money transfer program, came to be in Kenya. It's narrated by Michael Joseph, the managing director of mobile money at Vodafone and the program's founder.

The history of M-Pesa

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For the past few years a regular next-big-thing has been the contactless and smartphone-based payments. The goal being supposed ease of payment and reducing the steps required. In Ireland we now have the card-based transaction system in place for over a year with a maximum payment fee of €15 (and no bank charges on any payments by this method until 2015). But ancedotally, my impression is most people aren't even aware of the system, let alone a willingness to try it out. 

Of course you don't always need a smartphone for such easy transactions and money transfers. in Africa, they have had access to an SMS-based system for seven years and this system has started to be introduced in Europe. It's owner? Vodafone......