Mobile remittance hub company MFS Africa appointed mobile money industry veteran Michael Joseph (pictured) as a non-executive director.

Joseph is Vodafone’s director of mobile money, former Safaricom CEO and holds a number of positions in businesses and organisations focused on Africa and financial inclusion – including the World Bank.

During his time as Safaricom CEO the company launched its internationally renowned m-Pesa platform, widely credited with being the world’s first successful mobile money service and regularly cited as a template for the industry.

In his role of non-executive director at MFS Africa, Joseph will be charged with helping the company strengthen relations with mobile operators, banks and remittance companies in the continent. He will also provide strategic direction and engage with regulators and other authorities.

Joseph recently slammed proposals to force Safaricom to separate its m-Pesa business from its mobile unit.

MFS Africa provides a mobile payment hub enabling money transfer between different mobile wallet types, and companies to send money to accounts regardless of the brand the user is a customer of. The company said it is able to process payments to more than 120 million wallets in the continent.

Dare Okoudjou, MFS Africa CEO, said: “Michael’s the father of mobile money. His experience in making m-Pesa a near-ubiquitous service in Kenya and in many other Vodafone markets has helped create a rich ecosystem, rapidly and at scale, which will be invaluable to MFS Africa’s growth.”

Joseph added: “By connecting to 120 million mobile wallets – 75 per cent of all mobile wallets in Africa – and enabling cross border and cross network financial services, MFS Africa is helping to solve the industry’s biggest challenge. It’s an issue that’s close to my heart and I leapt at the opportunity to be part of the solution.”