Saving through the Mobile

This chapter will explain how M-PESA, an application that was designed for money transfers, is being used for savings in Kenya. It uses data from a collection of financial diaries to make its arguments. These diaries captured the savings practices of fourteen M-PESA users for a period of one month. They were part of a fourteen month ethnographic study that examined the adoption, usage and impact of M-PESA in two locations: an urban slum and a rural village. The study reveals that informants held a portfolio of savings mechanisms. M-PESA was used in conjunction with the other mechanisms and held a vital place in the portfolio—somewhere between the bank and home bank. The chapter will also use the empirical findings to suggest how mobile money applications can be designed to better suit the unique savings needs of the resource poor. In particular, it will suggest that M-PESA can be much more than just a mechanism in the savings portfolio. Rather, it can act as the platform on which the entire portfolio resides.