We often hear that M-PESA was able to scale quickly because it targeted an unmet need: urban to rural remittances. Safaricom based the initial launch of the M-PESA service on the “send money home” proposition because a large proportion of split families in Kenya needed a way to send money to relatives in rural areas but had few ideal options to do so.

In many markets, however, such a clear unmet need does not exist. The Philippines is a prime example. Even though mobile money providers have been in the market for more than 10 years, they have struggled to gain market share in the face of well-known and well-established payment providers.