The study found that increased access to mobile money has reduced poverty in Kenya, particularly among female-headed households. Rapid expansion of mobile money has lifted an estimated 2% of Kenyan households (some 194,000) out of extreme poverty. It has also enabled 185,000 women to move out of subsistence farming and into business or sales occupations.
Mobile money is a form of electronic money that allows you to conduct financial transactions using your mobile phone. It allows financial services to be extended to unbanked people at a significantly lower cost because physical infrastructure isn't needed.
Mobile phone penetration is rising across sub-Saharan Africa, with [[http://databank.worldbank.org/data/ almost 76%}} of the population having a mobile phone subscription. The growth in mobile phone ownership raises the potential for mobile money to reach unbanked people, providing them with a more affordable payments system.
M-PESA, Africa's first mobile money platform, was launched by Safaricom in Kenya in 2007. The service was designed to enable remittances to be sent home, and has enjoyed widespread adoption. Today 96% of households outside Nairobi have at least one M-PESA account.
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