I think the only reason we are sitting around waiting to see Safaricom's moves in the tech sector and declare another kenyan first is lack of imagination and lethargy on the competitors part.
Yu,Orange,Airtel are all fighting and failing badly at hyping their individual mobile money offerings. They do not have the extensive agent network, marketing strength or international coverage and reputation to be taken seriously. M-Pesa has all this.
The ecommerce space is largely ignored save for the efforts of the likes of Agosta Liko with his pesapal outfit. The 3 underdogs could team up and run a singe platform and consolidate their no.s. Get the online ecommerce community in the box and the likes of the google play store and related stores to accept payment directly from the platform. Talk nicely to Mastercard/visa maybe to associate mobile phone no.s with a credit/debit card no to ease mobile payments. Or attempt to build an African centric system.
Otherwise will have to wait for Safaricom to include online integration forever. The technology is available. What is lacking is political/bureacratic/financial will.
I am a Safaricom shareholder and would increase my holding if I could seeing as they are the only ones who seem to know what they are doing.
The lack of meaningful progress that we have is purely due to the monopoly that Safaricom was allowed to have by fumbling competitors.