The service has gone live three months after Safaricom secured a payment instrument issuer license from the National Bank of Ethiopia.All Safaricom Ethiopia customers can now download the app and send and receive money within the country. Users can also receive funds from abroad, pay merchants, buy airtime, and transfer to their bank accounts.Paul Kavavu, interim GM, Safaricom M-Pesa Mobile Financial Services, says: "M-Pesa is Africa’s most successful mobile money service and the region’s largest fintech platform both for the banked and unbanked due to its safety and convenience. "It also provides financial services to millions of people who have mobile phones, but do not have bank accounts, or only have limited access to banking services." Launched in Kenya on 6 March 2007 - originally as an idea part-funded by the UK Department for International Development in partnership with Vodafone - M-Pesa now claims more than 51 million customers across seven countries in Africa.