Kenya sold treasury bonds over M-Pesa, minimum $30.

Before M-Akiba, Kenya's government bonds were wholesale products: a KSh 50,000 minimum, a cumbersome account-opening process, and only about 10,000 retail investors holding 2% of outstanding bonds.

A KSh 150 million pilot sold out in days after launch on 23 March 2017, and the main KSh 1 billion offering followed on 30 June 2017: a three-year, 10% tax-free bond in units as small as KSh 3,000 (about US$30), bought through M-Pesa and Airtel Money with no bank account required.

Over 300,000 people registered at the main launch; 5,988 bought, raising KSh 247.75 million of the KSh 1 billion offered. Uptake fell short of hopes, but 85% of buyers had never owned a bond, investors spanned nearly all 47 counties, and it remained the first mobile treasury instrument in Africa.

Put the bond where the savers already pay.

Mobile rails reach savers no broker desk ever could.

A 100-fold cut in minimum turns a bond into a household product.

The registration base (300,000+) proved demand for the channel.

When a product's barrier is the channel, not the price, deliver it through the channel the customer already uses daily — even for something as staid as a government bond.

A post-issuance study found the design sound but the launch flawed — timing, education and reminders — and Kenya and other markets began applying the lessons to distribute government securities by mobile.