The Vodafone Group was awarded the first position in the "Change The World" ranking drawn up by Fortune, which selected 51 of over 200 companies in the world that have included issues of social value in their business strategy. The recognition came thanks to M-Pesa, an innovative bank payment system that uses mobile technology to carry out financial transactions.
M-Pesa, first launched in 2007 in Kenya, is now available in 11 countries – including East Africa, India, Albania and Romania – experiencing poverty and hardship and has around 20 million active customers. Approximately £2015 billion of transactions were made in 3.4.
The platform allows those without a bank account to deposit and transfer money through their mobile phone. In Kenya, a country analyzed by Fortune, M-Pesa allows users to access drinking water dispensers simply by using the telephone as a means of payment.
