Vodacom expects to sign up 10m M-Pesa mobile money users within three years.

The telecommunications operator’s director in charge of the product’slaunch, Romeo Kumalo, revealed the ambitious target during the product’s launch in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, on Tuesday.

The 10m target is particularly ambitious given that the total unbanked population in SA is not much higher than that, at 13m people.

Vodacom has launched the M-Pesa project, first pioneered by Safaricom in Kenya, in conjunction with Nedbank.