Bitcoins Payable Through Kenya’s M-Pesa Service Via Kipochi Mobile Wallet Posted 4 hours ago By Jason Campbell - Jr Editor A new service which opens the M-Pesa system to Bitcoin currency has energized Kenya’s mobile commerce sector. July has marked the launch of Kipochi – Swahili for wallet – a free service developed by veteran digital programmer Pelle Braendgaard. The service allows users to purchase bitcoins through M-Pesa – Kenya’s leading mobile-payments service at 44-million strong. Launched back in 2007 through a partnership between Safaricom and Vodafone, M-Pesa allows users to send payments via mobile phones to merchants and fellow users. Until now, M-Pesa has been limited to the Kenyan market. In Braendgaard’s view, Kipochi will allow the nation’s mobile users to accept fee-less remittances from relatives in other countries via the Bitcoin system. As one of the world’s leading virtual currencies, bitcoins can be transferred for free through peer-to-peer software, or at faster speeds for users willing to accept small fees. Nonetheless, the Bitcoin system has its complications, particularly on the currency-exchange front. Designed to remedy these complications, Kipochi is equipped with back-end servers that connect to local exchanges for Bitcoin currency. Kipochi facilitates user-to-user payments by connecting personal mobile numbers with the numerical codes that Bitcoin uses for authorization purposes. Since M-Pesa’s transaction amounts are low, Kipochi is geared for small-range bitcoins like the millibit, which roughly translates to eight cents. Though Kipochi functions solely as a web service, Braendgaard hopes to extend its functions to feature phones in the near future.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Jul 2013 10:06:48 +0000
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