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The startup — which in April this year was crowned Seedstars Global Winner — connects smallholder farmers directly to an online market to sell their commodities and by doing so eliminates middlemen and brokers who often exploit the farmers.

The growth of M-Pesa is the result of many factors, including the ease of setting up an account (which is free and only requires an official ID), its simplicity of use, its affordability, the high literacy rate of the population, and the high penetration of mobile phones.Another key element to M-Pesa’s growth worth emphasizing is the regulatory stance adopted by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). It decided not to oppose the entry of the telecom operator into the financial sector as long as it offered sufficient guarantees. CBK adopted an “above the fray” position as a regulator and allowed for experimentation in order to foster innovation.

InstallmentsAllow credit cardholders to benefit from every purchase by splitting the transaction into fix and equal installments based on the default ranges of 3, 6, 9- and 12-months installment plans. It can be offered in two ways: via POS at store. Via e-commerce websites through Fawrypay

The service will face stronger competition in the coming years. The Kenya Bankers Association -- representing 46 banks -- is introducing its own mobile payment platform that will allow convenient transfers between accounts at different banks, and the group hopes this will eat into M-Pesa's market share.

The system was launched by Vodafone's Safaricom mobile operator in 2007 as a simple method of texting small payments between users. Today there are 30 million users in 10 countries and a range of services including international transfers, loans, and health provision. The system processed around 6 billion transactions in 2016 at a peak rate of 529 per second.

Bango (AIM: BGO), the data-driven commerce company, and TPAY MOBILE FZ-LLC (TPAY MOBILE, www.tpaymobile.com) the full-service digital payments platform for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, have formed a strategic partnership to increase access to digital commerce. This partnership simplifies and accelerates entry into new markets for online merchants by connecting platforms and pooling operational expertise

So how does Mama Money offer their service at 5% whereas Mukuru, arguably the most popular service over the South Africa-Zimbabwe corridor, charges double this? From our experience of testing these two services, we noted a few key differences in how they operate which is likely to drive the cost differential between the two services. These differences include: · Mama Money maintain low overhead costs. Mama Money operate a single branch in Cape Town whereas Mukuru operate at least seven of their own branches nationally and they also operate through the Inter Africa branch network · Mama Money offer limited support beyond registration. In comparison, Mukuru operate a large 24 hour call centre and live chat function that supports and facilitates transfers. These support functions are no doubt very expensive to operate · Mama Money have a single partner organisation in Zimbabwe. Mama Money only have a single partner in Zimbabwe, CABS bank, whereas Mukuru have partnerships with a number of banks, retailers and mobile wallets. That said, if Mama Money’s Facebook comments are anything to go by, they may be adding more partner organisations in Zimbabwe, so this factor may soon be invalidated So while Mama Money’s competitors charge considerably higher fees, in the case of Mukuru, these higher fees are associated with some value-added benefits for the customer, for instance 24hr support on transactions for the sender and, for the recipient, a choice in how to receive the money.