{"id":652348,"date":"2017-01-06T08:33:20","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T08:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/01\/06\/m-pesas-role-in-the-modern-economy\/"},"modified":"2017-01-06T08:33:20","modified_gmt":"2017-01-06T08:33:20","slug":"m-pesas-role-in-the-modern-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/01\/06\/m-pesas-role-in-the-modern-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"M-Pesa\u2019s role in the modern economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re big fans of mobile payments system M-Pesa<\/strong>, and believe it holds great promise for the largely unbanked population in Egypt. Tim Harford presented M-Pesa as one of the 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy<\/a>, his BBC-produced radio show. Harford tracks how M-Pesa started in Kenya, where Kenyans used it to \u201creinvent money itself,\u201d and moves on to tell the story of how the Afghan government uncovered a widescale corruption scandal of some officials who were skimming about 30% of the cash allocated to police salaries, all after it switched to a mobile payment system to pay police officers \u2014 who realised they were getting paid less than what they were due all along. The idea behind M-Pesa, which took off in Kenya, \u201cwas to make it easier for small businesses to repay micro-finance loans. But, almost immediately, M-Pesa exploded into something far bigger - there are now 100 times more M-Pesa kiosks than ATMs in Kenya \u2013 and with far-reaching consequences, in many developing economies. Money transferred this way is easy to trace, which is bad news for the corrupt. And good news for tax authorities.\u201d (runtime 12:16).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re big fans of mobile payments system M-Pesa, and believe it holds great promise for the largely unbanked population in Egypt. Tim Harford presented M-Pesa as one of the 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy, his BBC-produced radio show. Harford tracks how M-Pesa started in Kenya, where Kenyans used it to \u201creinvent money itself,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-feature.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_primary_brand":0,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8317],"tags":[72,1797],"brand":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"class_list":["post-652348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-listen-to-this","tag-enterpriseam","tag-listen-to-this","wpautop","entry"],"acf":{"mongo_id":"9b17012a-0e46-4219-82fe-efc3083133a3","order":"0","is_powered_by":true,"story_type":"1","photo_url":"","photo_position":"above","related_issue":[652333],"teaser":"","voice_url":""},"yoast_head":"\nM-Pesa\u2019s role in the modern economy - EnterpriseAM Egypt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/enterpriseam.com\/egypt\/2017\/01\/06\/m-pesas-role-in-the-modern-economy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"M-Pesa\u2019s role in the modern economy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We\u2019re big fans of mobile payments system M-Pesa, and believe it holds great promise for the largely unbanked population in Egypt. Tim Harford presented M-Pesa as one of the 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy, his BBC-produced radio show. 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