Safaricom’s mobile financial service M-PESA has today marked 18 years since its launch in March 2007.
M-PESA is currently available in more than 170 countries globally serving over 70 million customers. The mobile financial services provider has grown to over one million businesses and agents in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Ghana and Egypt.
The service also supports over 55,000 integrations on its Daraja platform which hosts more than 100,000 developers. With its current capacity of 4000 transactions per second, the platform processes close to 100 million transactions a day, making it Africa’s largest fintech solution.
The Success and Growth of M-PESA
In a press briefing on Thursday, Safaricom said the success of M-Pesa is based on its accessibility, universal nature of the service, making it possible for millions to perform instant, secure and reliable financial transactions using their mobile phones.
“In the last 18 years, M-PESA has transformed the lives of millions of customers, empowering them with useful and affordable financial services. ‘’ Dr. Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom CEO said.
‘’With increasing smartphone usage across the continent, we are transitioning to be a digital financial services provider connecting customers and businesses to opportunities and powering their growth through our tech-powered solutions,” he added.
With more people across the continent shifting to smartphones, 3G and 4G broadband, Safaricom said M-PESA is today evolving to become a digital financial services provider. In 2021, M-PESA Africa launched the M-PESA Super App with a business proposition- the M-PESA Business App, which enables any business on the service to run a virtual store front providing their services virtually through M-PESA Mini apps.
Over the past two decades, M-PESA’s services has quadrupled, leading to financial inclusion that has helped drive national economic development.
According to Esther Waititu, Safaricom’s Chief Financial Services Officer, the company is scaling the platform to support additional digital services, faster development of new products, and to achieve increased stability and reliability.
“M-PESA’s future success will be based on its ease of use, and its seamless integration with other services and products to give customers a comprehensive suite of financial services at their fingertips. M-PESA represents the future of mobile financial services across the continent,” she stated.
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