Vodafone appoints director of mobile payments

Looking to build on the success of M-Pesa by recruiting Michael Joseph from Safaricom.

Joseph worked at the Kenyan mobile network for ten years, and it was there that he begun working with Vodafone's M-Pesa mobile money platform, which now has around 15m users and has been extended outside of Kenya to other African countries.

The service allows users to deposit and withdraw funds, transfer money, pay bills and buy top-ups.

The Telegraph reports that Vodafone has recruited Joseph as director of mobile payments to drive M-Pesa use among its customers in India, Mozambique, Ghana and Egypt.

Speaking to the newspaper, Joseph, said: "For Vodafone, India will be the biggest market. It is really right for this product. There are 700m people without bank accounts. 230m of those have mobiles, but there is also a huge market which, as yet, don't have either."

After Joseph retired from Safaricom last year, he went on to work as a part-time advisor to the World Bank , where he led m-banking services for developing countries.