“Are banks dead?” asked Gavin Krugel at this year’s Mobile Money Summit. Variations of this question been posed by provocateurs in the mobile money world for years. Is it possible that mobile money services will solve so many of its users’ financial challenges that people will see little need for bank accounts, choosing to keep their money in m-wallets instead? In this vision, bank accounts in the developing world will be a bit like fixed-line telephones: used by a few, but not by the mass, and certainly not the poor. A conversation I recently had with a taxi driver in Kenya—a country where more than half the adult population uses Safaricom’s M-PESA—illustrates why talk of the death of banks is unfounded. He explained that M-PESA is one of a portfolio of financial tools that he uses to manage his money, and that his bank is an indispensible part of that portfolio. In fact, I’ve come to believe that mobile money services can increase, rather than dampen, demand for traditional banking services.

Finally, M-PESA is connecting with banks in Kenya. And with a big bang too, as two big players in the financial inclusion scene in Kenya are joining forces: Safaricom (the mobile operator behind M-PESA) and Equity Bank are launching M-KESHO, a co-branded suite of financial products that will ride on the M-PESA transactional ‘rails.’ Three years ago, there were 2.5 million bank accounts in Kenya, out of a population of 39 million.