Known as one of the most innovative — and to date, successful — mobile money programs in the world, Kenya's M-PESA is now dabbling in virtual currencies thanks to a new service called Kipochi.

According to an article on CIO, Kipochi is a new venture from Pelle Braendgaard and lets users of M-PESA buy bitcoins. Bitcoins can then be used for digital commerce or even to make cross border money transfers, something M-PESA users can't do now.

Launched in 2007 by Safaricom and Vodafone, M-PESA operates in a number of sub-Sahara African countries as well as in Afghanistan and India. However, each M-PESA network is a separate entity in the country where it operates, and the networks aren't connected for cross border transfers.

Currently, M-PESA boasts more than 11 million users in Kenya where the unbanked rate is especially high, yet more than 80 percent of the country's 44 million citizens have a cellphone.

The only problem with Kipochi at this point is that it's only available as a web service, meaning that users must have access to a computer. However, Braendegaard said developers are working to create a way for feature phone users to access the service.

Read more about money transfer/P2P.