Operators consider M-Pesa expansion as growth hits new mark

By Tawanda Karombo, Sub Saharan Africa Business, Tech, News and Development Journalist
Johannesburg, 10 Mar 2022

Safaricom on Thursday announced that active monthly users of its mobile money platform, M-Pesa has now topped 30 million in Kenya and about 51 million across Africa.

The company stated that while M-Pesa is active in DRC, Egypt, Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania, usage in Kenya “has been remarkable”.

This is largely due to tie-in with value added services such as micro credit, bill and merchant payments, remittance receipts and funds transfers.

“M-Pesa has crossed 30 million customers using the service every month in Kenya (which) remains M-Pesa’s most active market,” reads an excerpt from a statement released by the company.

Active monthly users numbered 21 million for the remaining Africa operations including Lesotho.

Peter Ndengwa, CEO of Safaricom said: “As the country goes digital with growing smartphone usage, we are committing to continue exploring and delivering life-changing innovations in a digital world. M-Pesa’s success has been achieved on the back of consistent focus on the needs of our customers by ensuring that we are constantly delivering innovations that add value to their lives.”

M-Pesa has inked partnerships with remittance companies such as Paypay, AliExpress and Western Union. In addition, the number of businesses that accept payments on its Lipa Na M-Pesa service has doubled from 173 000 in April 2020 to more than 387 000 currently.

Safaricom and Vodacom (which prepped to offer mobile money services in Ethiopia after landing a mobile network permit) are now geared on “growing the MPESA service in other markets with a goal of bringing them to the same level of maturity as Kenya”.

Under the M-Pesa Africa establishment, Safaricom and Vodacom are investing in a “common platform that will empower all markets” to offer M-Pesa , with the Super App version of the platform now active in the DRC, Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique.

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