With a consumer base exceeding 31M, and an agent base of 167K+, M-PESA was impacting a huge population significantly from improved ability to manage and save money, wellbeing that comes with access to goods, services and opportunities. The acquisition of smartphones by the TA at 9M+ and 13M already using the internet, meant that they engaged a lot with other digital products and APPs that had a good user experience. Before the introduction of the APP, M-PESA was solely accessible via the SIM Tool Kit. Of course, it came with a lot of challenges some of which led to bad user experiences like sending money to the wrong recipient, keying in unintended details and system freezes. This was the wake-up call to give a lasting solution to the UX for a product that was so loved and user for 14 years.

The key learning from the Target Audience about M-PESA was that their usage and experience wasn’t commensurate due to the challenges posed by using the SIM toolkit and USSD. The need to step change this was apparent to ring fence the millions of consumers onto the platform.

The insight that we latched on was M-PESA APP was developed for everyday simplicity, for everyone. The user experience was designed to drive out complexity of the consumer’s life to enable them to do things easier, faster, and seamlessly. 14 years ago, M-PESA was created to make transactions safe and convenient for the consumer.

The new M-PESA APP was an improved platform that was developed to make everything simple for the consumer.