The Long-Term Effects of Access to Mobile Money in Kenya

M-PESA allows users to send and receive money through SMS messages. This IPA summary outlines one of the first studies examining the long-term effect access to M-PESA has on individuals, finding that in areas where M-PESA became more accessible, women were more likely to switch from farming to business occupations and to save more. It estimates that 185,000 women changed occupations, and 194,000 households, primarily female-headed households, were lifted above the poverty line between 2008 and 2014.