Vodafone has hired Michael Joseph, the father of mobile payments, to spearhead the global roll-out of its own mobile payments business, reports from the UK have said. UK-based newspaper, The Telegraph reports on its website Mr Joseph, who spent a decade as Chief Executive of leading Kenyan mobile operator, Safaricom, is credited with the phenomenal success of the M-Pesa mobile payments system which has helped Kenya to leapfrog a stage of development and kick-start its rural economy. The report said Mr. Joseph retired last year and became a part-time adviser to the World Bank to help establish similar schemes elsewhere, but has now joined Vodafone as director of mobile payments, to drive M-Pesa in India, and Vodafone's African markets such as Mozambique, Ghana and Egypt. "For Vodafone, India will be the biggest market. It is really right for this product. There are 700 million people without bank accounts - 230 million of those have mobiles, but there is also a huge market which, as yet, doesn't have either," the report quoted Mr. Joseph as saying. "It's also a huge opportunity because of the geography, but [fraud can occur] so you need to have a passion and to know it can be successful in order to invest the capital and the time training people," he said. In the countries where M-Pesa operates, a network of more than 60,000 small shops and businesses allows mobile customers to swap their physical cash for electronic credits, which they can then store securely or send via SMS. In Ghana, market leader MTN and second largest operator, Tigo have mobile payment services, while Airtel is also gearing up to make its Airtel Money service available to the public after a recent introduction to the local media. Even though Ghana is listed as one of the countries Vodafone plans to start mobile payment services, an official of Vodafone Ghana said in a text message to Adom News “we are still looking into the feasibility – no decision has been made as to whether we will do it.”