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For the majority of the population, who have never touched a keyboard or stepped through the doors of a bank, Fawry offers bill payment at the corner store. It has a growing network of collection points at small grocers, stationers and chemists, which are equipped with point-of-sale machines – the same ones used for credit card payments. Fawry’s services are available at 16,000 retailers and 1,300 post offices, advertised by its bright blue and yellow logo.

One of the drives for Fintech innovations, like M-Pesa, is financial inclusion, which is mostly geared toward an underbanked or unbanked group of people.

M-Pesa is a virtual banking system that provides transaction services through a SIM card. Once the SIM has been inserted into the card slot of the mobile device, users can make payments and transfer money to vendors and family members with SMS messages. Users with no bank accounts can access the numerous M-Pesa outlets distributed across the country. The money that needs to be stored is given to the kiosk attendant, who transfers the amount in digital form to the user’s M-Pesa’s account. Cash collected from M-Pesa is deposited in bank accounts held by Safaricom. The bank accounts serve as regular checking accounts and are insured up to a maximum of 100,000 shillings (or $1000) by the Deposit Protection Fund. M-Pesa provides receipts as proof of transaction. For a transaction to take place, both parties have to exchange each other’s phone numbers because the phone numbers act as account numbers. After settlement, both parties receive an SMS notification with the full name of the counterparty and the amount of funds deposited or withdrawn from the user’s account. The mobile receipt, which is received within seconds, helps to promote transparency for all individuals involved in a transaction.