08 Jul VIDEO AND BLOG: The History of Digital Payments including M-Pesa in Africa

Posted at 17:22h

 

Digital Payments Timeline

 

  • 1994: First online purchase is made
    A CD of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales is sold for $12.48 on NetMarket.

 

  • 1997: First mobile payments and first contactless payments
    Coca-Cola installs two vending machines in Helsinki that accept payment by text message.

 

  • 1999: Paypal launches electronic money transfer service
    Early on, PayPal’s user base grew nearly 10% daily. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and venture capitalist Peter Thiel were among its co-founders.

 

  • 2003: Alibaba launches Alipay in China
    Today, the mobile payment platform has witnessed stunning growth — leveraging digital wallets accepted by merchants in over 50 countries and regions.

 

  • 2007: M-PESA creates the first payments system for mobile phones
    Kenya-based M-PESA launched its mobile banking and microfinancing service. Today, it has over 37 million active users on its platform across Africa.

 

  • 2009: Bitcoin enables secure, untraceable payments
    Satoshi Nakamoto develops the first decentralized payment network in the world.

 

  • 2013: WeChat Pay is rolled into the popular messaging platform
    By 2018, it surpasses 800 million monthly active users.

 

  • 2014: Apple Pay launches
    By 2023, over $2 trillion of mobile payment transactions could be authenticated by biometric technology.

As technological advances continue to unfold, advances in digital payment technologies are creating ripple effects globally.

THANK YOU TO https://www.visualcapitalist.com/digital-payment-adoption/ FOR THEIR CONTENT AND INSPIRATION