What were you doing when you were 5? I was probably running around the house much to the annoyance of my parents, falling off my bike or falling off a tree. Largely, falling, breaking things and crying a lot is what a typical 5 year old does.

But among us there exists a very unusual 5 year-old. While we the vast majority of 5 year-olds in history have been the falling-over, breaking-things, crying type, this one particular 5 year old sticks out like a sore thumb.

Born on the 6^th of March 2007 into a very politically charged Kenya, this child was special from the onset. The Beatles released “Let It Be,” in the UK on 6^th March 1970. Cassius Clay was renamed Muhammad Ali on 6^th March 1964. Ghana gained its independence from the British on the 6^th of March 1957 and China asked for a seat on the United Nations Security Council on 6^th March 1926. On the 6^th of March 2007, M-PESA was born.

With 19,671 active MPESA users, former Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph apparently gave the team tasked to develop MPESA a target of 1,000,000 active users within the year lest they all face the axe. He would have been happy with 800,000 users, he said on Jeff Koinange’s “Capital Talk” show aired on Monday 19^th March 2012. They got 1,200,000 users within the year. And the rest they say is history.

Toddler, Teen To Adult

In 2008 MPESA and Housing Finance signed a service deal to offer MPESA services at all Housing Finance outlets countrywide. In June they had attained a customer base of 3 million users.

In 2009, Safaricom extended MPESA service to KPLC customers, allowing customers pay their KPLC bills via MPESA.

In 2010, Safaricom and Equity Bank partnered to bring customers’ bank accounts into their pockets with their M-KESHO product. 10,000,000 M-PESA users and counting! Later in the year M-PESA partnered with leading supermarkets in the country to enable shoppers pay for their purchases via M-PESA.

In 2011, the Safaricom Foundation and the KCB Foundation led a coalition of corporate Kenya and media in launching a massive fund-raising effort called Kenyans For Kenya Initiative following the worst draught suffered in the horn of Africa in the last sixty years, with M-PESA donating a toll free number for Kenyans to send their contributions.

On the 1^st of March 2012, M-PESA registered 14,652,539 registered users. M-PESA is 5 years and 16 days old today, but the growth that it has experienced over those years is astronomical. It really cannot be considered a baby and as such it begs the question, how much more can M-PESA grow?