Beyond Mobile Money: The Infrastructure Behind Kenya's Growth | Voices & Visions

What is the biggest blocker for, for good international payments from, from Kenya?

Um, so international payments, two thing, two things happen, and, uh, one is when you look at the different fintechs that come up, what's the KYC, where's the source of money? There's a lot of conversation around source of money-

Yeah

... and, uh, KYC, uh, of the, of the particular, particular person.

Think about the stories with Minnesota, just ensuring that your system is not being used to then channel this money that is not legally own, uh, legally acquired.

Yeah.

I also think about money laundry.

That's a big i- that's a big issue that comes up.

Yeah.

You know, that kind of things.

Yeah.

But the regulator then [clears throat] is very strict, and so it takes a lot of time to really take, to, to really go through the kind of partnerships we are having-

Yeah

... and who is it you're talking to.

And so we as Safaricom take a lot of time to understand the partners we're partnering with, so just make sure that we don't find ourselves in the wrong side of the law, and also, we don't also encourage any use of our systems for illegal funds that are acquired.

Yeah.

So that's the biggest challenge that we have today.

Yeah.

In terms of are there systems and platforms that work? Yes, there's systems and platforms work.

Yeah.

Different countries, different levels, but I would say in Kenya, and, uh, East Africa generally-

Yeah

...

they, they work.

Systems work.