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Marking its 18th year, Safaricom is Investing $300 Million in an Upgrade to Enhance Its M-PESA Service
Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest phone company, is investing $300 million (about KSh 40 billion) in an Upgrade to Enhance Its M-PESA Service. This big investment comes as Safaricom celebrates 18 years since M-PESA first started helping people send money using mobile phones.
M-PESA began in March 2007 and has grown into Africa’s biggest mobile money service. Today, more than 70 million people in over 170 countries use M-PESA. The service handles nearly 100 million money transactions every day and can process up to 4,000 transactions every second.
“In the last 18 years, M-PESA has transformed the lives of millions of customers, empowering them with useful and affordable financial services,” said Dr. Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom’s CEO. As more people in Africa get smartphones, Safaricom is working to turn M-PESA into a complete digital banking service.
The upgrade, called “M-PESA 2.0,” will make the system work better and faster for customers. Safaricom wants to make sure the service never goes down and keeps people’s money safe. The company is even hiring special computer experts to test the system and find any problems before they happen.
Over the years, M-PESA has changed from just a simple way to send money to offering many financial services. Now people can save money, get loans, and even invest through M-PESA. The service helps more than one million businesses and agents across eight African countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Egypt.
Safaricom to Enhance Its M-PESA Service by making it work better with other apps and services. The company’s Daraja platform already hosts over 100,000 software developers who create new ways for businesses to use M-PESA. More than 55,000 different services are connected to M-PESA through this platform.
As part of its 18th anniversary celebration, Safaricom has launched a new investment service called Ziidi. This allows customers to invest as little as KSh 100 (about $0.75) and has already attracted over a million users. Safaricom also plans to add more investment options that follow Islamic banking rules.
“The campaign will also serve as a platform to reassure M-PESA customers of Safaricom’s commitment to provide a worry-free, safe, and secure financial ecosystem to its customers,” Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said during the celebration events.
Safaricom Celebrates 18 years anniversary with activities across the country. The company is rewarding customers with free airtime and other gifts to thank them for their support. These nationwide events will involve customers, investors, partners, employees, and government officials.
M-PESA has helped many more Kenyans use banking services, with access growing from just 26.7% in 2006 to 83.7% in 2021. The service now brings in over $1 billion in yearly revenue for Safaricom.
With this big investment to enhance its M-PESA service, Safaricom is getting ready for the future of digital money in Africa, making sure its customers can manage their money easily and safely for many more years.
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