Michael Joseph appointed World Bank Fellow for mobile payments

Michael Joseph, the former Safaricom CEO who retired as of November 1, 2010, has been appointed to a role at the World Bank to advise it on mobile payment services. Safaricom effectively created the market for mobile banking services when it launched the hugely successful M-PESA platform in 2007, which has been imitated in many other countries since then.

Michael Joseph is joining the bank under its new fellowship programme, which was set up to tap new expertise into its development work and strengthen its knowledge network.

As a World Bank Fellow, Joseph will provide strategic advice to the World Bank and governments beyond Africa on policy and regulatory issues to promote development of mobile banking and mobile payments.

The World Bank’s December 2010 Kenya Economic Update estimated that more than 21 million Kenyans have access to phones, with 15 million using mobile money services. In December 2010, mobile money services in Kenya reached a new record of almost US$1 billion in transactions.