Part 1 — The Encounter. — I came across Bitcoin in 2015 whilst working for Safaricom PLC through a company called Bitpesa. Bitpesa was a company that was looking to launch its business in Kenya offering a way for Kenyans to buy and sell crypto. They also wanted to provide a money remittance service from Western…

Review Of Agent Network (The M-PESA Moat) And Insights On What Customers Are Doing. — Safaricom released its results for the year ended 31st March 2021 on 13th May 2021, and the results are impressive. The M-PESA business held its revenue generation power despite COVID 19 headwinds. I will attempt to look at the M-PESA numbers using a networks effects context to uncover the M-PESA…

Monetization Strategy — Getting digital banking products out of the innovation labs. — Having worked both in the telecommunications and banking sectors, I have noted that telecom companies think very differently when it comes to monetization than banks. Adopting some of the monetization principles practised in the telecom space would greatly benefit digital banks and digital-first products trying to get off the ground.

A Network Effects Strategy. — M-PESA has had a stronghold on the money transfer business in Kenya for the last 10 years. This is due to the fact that the M-PESA network is a large, direct personal utility network sitting on top of large personal utility GSM network. I wrote about this here. The Mobile Subscription Market Share. According to…

Part Two — From Theory To Business Model. — I addressed some elements of Platform theory in Part One of this series. Now let's try and put together a hypothetical Platform business model that can be adopted by a Kenyan Bank. Why Should Banks Consider This Strategic Direction? Based on the changing environment in technology, Banks risk getting relegated to the plumbing in as far as…

Part One — The Building Blocks: — It is a well-documented fact that platform-based internet companies have been very successful in the last 20 years. A quick Wikipedia search shows that eight out of the world’s ten largest companies from a market cap perspective are Platform technology companies, only Berkshire Hathaway and…

Changing Society COVID 19 is sweeping through our communities, forcing people to exercise social distancing in their day to day engagements. Weddings have fewer people; funeral ceremonies have become rushed events where most customs are not being observed, religious gatherings have mostly gone online. …