Imagine the following scene in Kibera, one of the world’s largest urban
slums, located in southwestern Nairobi1:
A 32-year-old man who drives a matatu (an informally
operated miniature bus) for a living deposits
5000 Kenyan shillings at the local mobile-phone shack.
Although he normally visits the shop to add to his
mobile talk-time (most mobile phone accounts in the
developing world are pre-paid), in this instance, he
requests that the money be added to his M-PESA
account and provides the shopkeeper with his mobile
phone number. She complies, and a few seconds later,
he receives confirmation of the transaction via a single
SMS text message.
The man then performs a few manipulations on his
mobile phone — a sequence that he learned a year ago