M-Pesa: From Fintech Inventor to the Status Quo

Join the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and the Global Development Policy Center for a seminar examining the evolution of M-Pesa from the pioneer fintech leader into a rigid status quo defined by market dominance and institutional hubris. We’ll review the platform’s transition into a bureaucratic incumbent and government-aligned gatekeeper, utilizing its position for economic rent extraction while acting as a systemic bottleneck that is slow to adopt consumer-facing technologies. The discussion illustrates how M-Pesa’s robust financial metrics increasingly decouple from genuine innovation, morphing a digital disruptor into an obstacle to broader social impact and technological progress. Guest presenters include:

Patrick Njoroge, Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya from June 2015 to June 2023, member of the Advisory Boards of the Yale Program on Financial Stability and the Global Finance and Technology Network, chair of the Africa Financial Industry Summit (AFIS) Supervisory Council, member of the Africa Expert Panel for South Africa’s G20 Presidency, and MIT visiting scholar 2025-26.

Mai Hassan, Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT and faculty affiliate with the Belfer Center’s Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School.

This event will take place in Photonics 906, 8 St Mary’s St, Boston, MA on Tuesday, September 29th from 3:30-5:00pm. More details and the registration form can be found at the linked address here:

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