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While this Phillippines SMS mobile payment service looks superficially similar and 7 years older, it is much more tightly linked to existing financial infrastructure, including bank accounts (optional) and cards (required).

Kenya's M-Pesa only requires a mobile.

Both country services require registration with government ID documents.

In addition, what has been partly astonishing about M-Pesa is the incredibly rapid growth in its use. Within 8 months of its launch in April 2007, it had over 17 million subscribers (50% of the population), i.e. on average over 2 million subs per month for a non-Internet service!