Imagine you’re a grocer in Tanzania. The sun sets, and you’re forced to close shop because you—like the majority of those in your country—have no electricity. Then a mobile money loan gives you access to a solar battery, which allows you to charge your phone while keeping the lights on in the evening. You pay for the power you need on a daily basis. You expand your hours. Earn more money. Your child returns to school.

“This innovation brings me back [to my teenaged years],” Kosta Peric recently shared during a FinTech Insider interview. The head of the Level One Project for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spent his youth in Africa, where his father worked as a geophysicist for the United Nations. “I remember in Burundi, you didn’t buy a pack of cigarettes; you bought one cigarette. So this notion of…’just what you need’ sachet-type of financial transactions is really what we are looking at.”

Level One gives the poor in Africa and South Asia access to digital payment platforms. As Kosta spoke about the powerful ecosystems he’s deploying, I kept thinking, ‘These countries are innovating out of necessity.’ But actually, what we’re talking about—the need for seamless, cost efficient banking platforms that serve the needs of customers—is incredibly relevant in the UK.