Nairobi — Former Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor Njuguna Ndung'u has revealed that M-Pesa faced strong resistance from within the regulator before its launch in 2007, with some officials fearing the mobile money platform could facilitate money laundering.
Speaking at an event in Sweden, Ndung'u, who later served as Treasury Cabinet Secretary, said sections of the CBK viewed the proposed mobile money service as either a money-laundering tool or a pyramid scheme.
He said he instead saw its potential to advance financial inclusion and pushed the regulator to engage with the innovators rather than block the product.
"It was in 2007 when I had just joined the Central Bank and I found a very hostile central bank telling me not to talk to those people because this is a money laundering tool or what they called a pyramid scheme," Ndung'u said.
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"In the end I said we have found a tool which is going to help us in our journey for financial inclusion."
Ndung'u said he deliberately referred to M-Pesa as a "retail electronic payment system" to help policymakers better understand its role in enabling real-time mobile transactions.
He noted that the World Bank later published one of the first papers validating the innovation.
Launched by Safaricom and Vodafone in March 2007, M-Pesa has grown into one of the world's most successful mobile money platforms.
It now serves about 40 million monthly active customers in Kenya and processed Sh41.68 trillion in transactions during the 12 months ended March 2026.
