African Telcos leapfrogged banks by giving access to digital payments (and receipts) to subscribers with no bank accounts. Not just consumers but small business people selling produce and with low incomes; often just $5 to $25 a day. Vodacom, Safaricom and MTN to name just three. Mobile Money allows subscribers to digitally and securely pay for services and products plus sell as well. MTN in Kenya already transacts over 50% of all Kenysa's GDP via mobile money service, M-PESA completely bypassing global and local banks.
There are another 2 billion potential customers across low-income and middle income countries that are potential customers for mobile money solutions (see Further Reading).
It is not just innovative Telco's in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia that are forging this transformational path. In Europe, BT's CEO Allison Kirkby has reportedly shaken the boardrooms of other European Telcos by challenging the unspoken assumptions that have governed European telecom for decades:
- Ownership equals control
- Scale equals safety
- Workforce alone equals resilience.
BT is breaking all three assumptions.
Altair Media reports that “The scale of BT’s transformation has created a quiet unease among its continental peers. A 40% workforce reduction framed not as austerity, but as architectural necessity. Networks redesigned around orchestration rather than expansion. AI repositioned not as support technology, but as the operational core.”
African Telcos have taken advantage of banks not providing an affordable serice in rural areas to bridge the gap and capture customers with an inclusive and simple to use service rather than the banks' exlusive offerings. They have learnt to innovate with scarce resources.
“Rural Colombia never built bank branches. Nigerian villages never installed ATMs. So when mobile payments arrived, people switched from cash directly to digital money without the friction of introducing banks or changing established habits.”
Douglas Laney in Forbes Magazine
In parallel, Releaf Financial has launched a platform that compliments telcos in both low-income & middle-icome countries with an inclusive goal to improve CX and UX for customers and telcos. Releaf also offers competitive advantage to telcos in high-income countries. It unleashes the latent compute capabilities of subscriber smartphones to validate payments through Proof of Intent and/or proof of identity.
Combining Crypto-mining, blockchain, AI and Proof of Intent (POI) in one new business and technology model. Fully patented.
Vodacom, Safaricom and MTN facilitate micro-payments and via ecosystems micro-loans. micro-contracting and a host of financial services. M-PESA users could take produce to market and take insurance cover for the trip- micro insurance- and if they needed to replace a tyre or repair the vehicle take out a micro-loan to avoid delay and lost sales. They can bill customers who want to pay digitally or may have micro-contracted a specific delivery for another business. All at affordable cost.
One expensive fault line, however, is proving that customers have the intent to make a payment. ReLeaf provides that. Not with the expensive Proof of Work processes deployed in Western markets but by a far less expensive but effective proof of intent (POI) process. Google has announced a similar POI service to support agenticAI (digital workers); imitation is a sincere ( if expensive) form of flatery highlighting the importance and value of this innovation.
ReLeaf enables Telcos to share new revenue streams with customers to subsidise smartphones, subscription plans- any area the telco decides a customer has unmet needs. How is that for real inclusiveness and customer loyalty programs? Customer-centricity in action.
What is good for Africa is also good for Europe , North America and Rich Asia. One of the largest and expensive fault lines of payments and transactions is proving not just that the person or business initiated the payment but additionally that they intended to and fully understood the nature of the transaction. ReLeaf solves that issue.
US Patent 12,505,416 B2, invented by Chris Surdak and assigned to ReLeaf Financial Inc. ,heralds a significant new business model for business and consumers. The system employs the "Proof-of-Intent" consensus mechanism, leveraging notaries and witnesses for efficient transaction validation. Drawing from Surdak's expertise in infonomics and ecosystem economics—where idle resources like data and compute are treated as monetizable assets—the ecosystem creates value through distributed participation, low-cost operations, and incentives aligned with emerging market needs.
This creates a virtuous loop: users provide latent compute, telcos gain effective loyalty tools, and the network achieves decentralization. Surdak's infonomics influence is evident in treating "stranded assets" like idle CPU cycles and pre-paid phone energy as free inputs. Witnesses and notaries earn fees from transactions—split proportionally—without requiring upfront staking or heavy computation. Smartphone users earn real income and the telco can retain revenuethat loes direct to the bottom-line. A win-win for all; inclusively.
At scale, this yields ecosystem-wide savings that are shared with all participants. Low marginal costs enable micro-transactions, not just payments but with other telco ecosystem partners micro-contracting in fintech, insurance, supply chains, and remittances.
My imagination combined the benefits that ReLeaf offers with the transformation goals of Allison Kirby and BT's 25 million subscribers via EE, Plusnet with smartphones that can be leveraged for proof of intent validation, proof of identity and able to share in the revenues generated.
So many of the goals coincide eg:
Inclusion rather than exclusion
Programmable platform rather than a commoditised carrier
Global and able to customise for each country
Deliver Trusted digital entities
Connecting customers with each other and with suppliers
Bringing rapidly brilliant and simple CX and UX; no effort required
Innovative products and services that a telco's customers need.
Altair reports that Deutche Telecom, Orange and Vodafone ( majority owner of Vodacom) are looking at this transformation of a moribund telco to a digital global champion competing successfully and globally. (See Further Reading)
“Orchestration is a luxury for those without the capital to build. At Deutsche Telekom we believe digital sovereignty begins with fiber in the ground and antennas in the air. Without ownership of infrastructure, you become dependent on the whims of global cloud providers. We are the only European player with the scale to offer a real counterweight.”
Tim Höttges — CEO Deutsche Telekom
“Innovation must never come at the cost of human connection. While others reduce headcount in the belief that AI will fill the gaps, Orange continues to invest in human cybersecurity expertise. Sovereignty is not only an algorithm — it is the assurance that there is a European face behind the controls.”
Christel Heydemann — CEO Orange
“The market forces radical simplicity. We can no longer be everything to everyone. Like BT, we must decide where we truly add value. The future is not more network — it is smarter network. Partnerships and consolidation are unavoidable if Europe wants to stay competitive in the AI era.”
Margherita Della Valle — CEO.Vodafone Group
Vodafone's CEO seems to chime with BT's whilst Deutche Telecom and Orange seem more set in an incumbent's resistance to change. BT is not avoiding the human element of business but aims to use AI to make its workforce smarter and more customer-centric in the outputs it delivers. Much as ReLeaf leverages AI tools to deliver outcomes smartly whilst only using them for use cases that are secure and compliant with country regulations.
The next year or two will show whether the anxiety of BT's competitors are justified. I believe they are and that BT can leapfrog incumbent European telcos just as African telcos are leapfrogging banks.
Further Reading
Telcos Are Becoming Banks For The Next 2 Billion Customers Forbes Magazine
BT's trategic Repositioning Altair
Europe in Transition Altair
The Ghost in the Machine: How a Silent Algorithm Could End the Digital Divide Culture & Clarity Ltd
BT under Allison Kirkby is no longer behaving like a traditional European telecom operator. It is no longer optimizing a legacy structure, nor defending historical assets. Instead, it is redefining what a telecom company is allowed to be in the AI era.
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