Mobile East Africa
summary
Claims that matter: East Africa achieves broad cashless adoption by wiring feature phones into a lightweight payments layer, not by smartphones. The system uses a distributed agent network to convert cash to digital value, a fiat-backed token tied to bank reserves, and simple identity via mobile numbers. Result: peer-to-peer transfers at scale — tens of millions of users, roughly 30% of Kenya’s GDP flows over mobile money — and it works in the wild.
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chapters (11)
- 0:00Introduction
- 1:44Web dev and business models
- 6:01Mobile revolution East Africa
- 10:21M-Pesa basics
- 13:38M-Pesa vs Bitcoin
- 17:57UI alignment in tech
- 24:28M-Pesa architecture
- 32:40Mobile banking success
- 41:12Tech adoption lessons
- 45:10Privacy and misalignment
- 48:31Q&A
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