After they tested the first version of the product that would later be named M-PESA, the team at Safaricom returned to Michael Joseph with a request – they wanted to change it.

“This thing has the potential, but we have to change the software to make it send money home,” was the message Michael received.

That was after the trials in 2005 and 2006. The product that had been developed with funding from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development and Vodafone was built to enable people pay their microfinance loans.

The test group, based in Thika, however, discovered that while they could send e-money to the microfinance, they could also send the same money to each other, but only within the closed system of the microfinance.

To make it a platform that could be used to send money from one subscriber to another, the software needed to be changed. Michael did not hesitate, and in the first year alone, Safaricom invested $10 million to change M-PESA to fit the needs of the Kenyan market.

To enable the roll-out of the new M-PESA software, Safaricom needed to roll out newly enabled SIM cards, which cost $1.25, and the dealers would be paid $1.50 for every new subscriber they helped acquire, all of which was being paid for by Safaricom.

Safaricom soon found itself in trouble with Vodafone, a major shareholder. “They came and said, ‘You are absolutely wasting money. This is a stupid idea. You are wasting time, and you are wasting money!’ But I said I’m going to do it anyway,” said Michael on M-PESA’s 18th birthday on March 7.

That stubbornness belied the passion that drove M-PESA’s penetration and acceptance into Kenya, where it has become a success story.

As M-PESA turns 18, watch the conversation between Michael and M-PESA Africa CEO Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, who were among the small group of men and women who brought M-PESA to these shores.