It took some time to get off the ground but once it got going in Kenya, M-Pesa soared and soared relentlessly – hitting stratospheric levels of success. Today, it’s a global reference point for the kind of outsized impact that can be derived from essentially turning even the most basic feature phone into a bank account. Having driven financial inclusion in Kenya to nearly 90 percent and inspired the rollout of many other mobile money/mobile wallet services in Africa and beyond, M-Pesa is largely considered a masterstroke orchestrated by Kenya’s largest telco, Safaricom. The telco typically gets all the credit...