Safaricom and Pesapal are rolling out next-generation payment features on M-PESA designed to make everyday transactions faster and more convenient for businesses and customers across Kenya.
According to the telco on Thursday, the collaboration with the payment gateway provider builds on its continued innovation around M-PESA payments, including Scan-to-Pay, AI Pay and Tap-to-Pay.
This rollout onto physical merchant terminals addresses a critical commercial driver for Safaricom, especially since payment revenues drive 74.4% of M-PESA’s total income.
According to Safaricom’s latest financial reports, M-PESA commands an 89.1% market share in the East African nation, serving over 40.9 million active monthly users.
The platform processed 46.41 billion transactions valued at KSh 41.68 trillion over the financial year, averaging 136 million transactions a day.
By collaborating with an independent gateway provider like Pesapal, Safaricom effectively maximises its merchant footprint across 30,000 existing physical checkout terminals.
Pesapal brings its merchant payment infrastructure to this journey, enabling Scan-to-Pay and Tap-to-Pay through its point of sale (POS) devices, extending these payment experiences to the physical POS.
Scan-to-Pay enables customers to scan a QR code linked directly to a merchant’s M-PESA Till Number. Building on this experience, Safaricom’s partnership with Pesapal introduces Dynamic Scan-to-Pay, allowing customers to scan a QR code displayed on the Pesapal POS.
The feature is already available at over 60,000 merchant outlets, with a target of scaling to 500,000 within the next year alongside the expanding footprint of Pesapal POS devices.
The partnership also introduces Tap-to-Pay, which enables customers with near field communication-enabled smartphones to tap their device on a Pesapal POS, verify the transaction details and complete the payment.
“As the way Kenyans shop and transact continues to evolve, we are focused on ensuring that M-PESA evolves with them. This means moving beyond simply enabling payments to reimagining the payment experience itself. Our partnership with Pesapal is an important part of that journey, bringing together our respective capabilities to shape the next generation of everyday payments,” said James Maitai, Group chief technology officer, Safaricom PLC.
"Tap-to-Pay and Scan-to-Pay on the Pesapal POS represent the biggest leap in Kenya's checkout experience in years. Thousands of businesses trust our platform, and by teaming up with Safaricom, we are delivering the faster, error-free transactions their customers expect. Today, we activate the future of payments,” said Agosta Liko, founder, Pesapal.
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