I have already written about African Telcos leapfrogging banks in Africa 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 pay for services and products and sell as well. MTN in Nigeria already transacts over 50% of all Nigerias's GDP via mobile money serviuce M-PESA completely bypassing global and local banks. 

There are over 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 and workforce equals resilience.

BT is breaking all three.

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.”

Afrian Telcos have taken advantage of banks not having infrastructure in rural areas to bridge the gap and capture customers.

“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 AND also offers competitive advantage to telcos in high-income countries. Releaf 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 in one new business and technology model. And fully patented. 

Vodacom, Safaricom and MTN facilitate micro-payments and via ecosystems micro-loans. micro-contracting and a host of financial services. One expensive fault line 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 proof of intent (POI). Google has announced a similar POI service to support agenticAI (digital workers)  so this is an important innovation 

In fact, ReLeaf enables Telcos to share revenue with customers to subsidise smartphones, subscription plans- any area the telco decides a customer needs. How is that for real inclusiveness and customer loyalty programs?

What is good for Africa is also good for Europe and the USA. 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 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 compute, telcos gain 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.

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 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

• Programmable platform rather than a carrier

• Global and able to customise for each country

• Deliver Trusted digital entities

• Connecting customers and suppliers

• Bringing rapidly brilliant and simple CX and UX

• Innovative products and services that its 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

The next year or two will show whether that anxiety is justified. I believe it is and that BT can leapfrog incumbent European telcos just as African telcos are leaofrogging banks.

Further Reading

Telcos Are Becoming Banks For The Next 2 Billion Customers  Forbes  Magazine

BT's trategic Repositioning Altair

Europe in Transition Altair