Africa's first Bitcoin transfer service has launched in Kenya, piggybacking on M-Pesa, the country's highly successful mobile banking platform. The service, called Kipochi, will allow Kenyans to move money abroad while dodging the hefty transaction fees charged by companies like Western Union and MoneyGram.
Kipochi -- which means purse in Swahili -- describes itself as a light-weight easy to use Bitcoin wallet. Users only need an email address, phone number and passport or national identity number to sign up and can currently transfer up to one Bitcoin a day using the service -- although this is expected to increase soon.
Kipochi will link to M-Pesa, the system that many Kenyan citizens currently use to transfer money by text message within the country, and will allow them to send and receive Bitcoin across borders, converting it to and from an M-Pesa balance. Exchanging money will be made much cheaper, as Bitcoin only charges $0.04 (£0.03) per transfer.
By: Katie Collins,
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via Wired.co.uk
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-07/09/africa-first-bitcoin-wallet
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