One of M-PESA’s biggest impacts has been getting more Kenyans into the formal financial system.

This was made possible by its ability to transfer money from someone with a bank account to someone without, bringing the percentage of the banked population from a low of 27 percent in 2006 to 85 percent now.

Ethiopia has no such problem.

With about 30 banks and an extensive network of more than 8,250 branches and ATMs serving its population of nearly 125 million, Ethiopians have access to money.

Wim Vanhelleputte, the Chief Executive Officer of Safaricom Ethiopia, and his team have identified a gap that M-PESA could help fill: The biggest note in Ethiopia is the equivalent of about KES200.

It is one of the first things a visitor to Addis Ababa notices – the need to carry around large bundles of money.

“We are not solving the money transfer problem, what we are solving in Ethiopia with M-PESA is the digital payment, the cash payment to be replaced by digital payments,” said Wim.

The advantage for Safaricom Ethiopia is that the services available on the platform have already been built, so unlike in Kenya, where Lipa na M-PESA was first tested in supermarkets, it can be easily customised for a new market in its current format.

“If you want to be successful with a new product, you need to be relevant. You need to solve a real problem or a customer pain point, and then you’ll become very successful. That pain point we are solving for Ethiopia is with digital payments,” said Wim.

Wim is encouraged by the fact that a third of M-PESA’s 10.8 million customers in Ethiopia are using digital channels, which, combined with the proliferation of banks, means they understand the need to make payments easily.

As M-PESA turns 18, the Safaricom Ethiopia CEO told the Safaricom Newsroom what’s next for the platform in Ethiopia.