Kenya’s Safaricom takes M-Pesa global with Western Union
Integration of the two platforms will allow users to send and receive money from more than 200 countries and territories
Kenya's biggest telecoms operator, Safaricom, unveiled a new service on its M-Pesa mobile financial services platform on Tuesday that will allow users to send money around the world in a partnership with Western Union. Started 11 years ago as a basic service to transfer money via mobile phone to cater for Kenyans without access to the formal banking network, M-Pesa has evolved into a fully fledged financial service, offering loans and savings in conjunction with local banks, as well as merchant payments services. It has also powered Safaricom’s earnings growth in recent years, with revenue from the service growing 18% in the half year to the end of September to 35.52-billion shillings ($349.43m), nearly a third of the total. The new service will allow M-Pesa’s 21-million active users to send and receive money across the world using their mobile phones, which will be connected to Western Union’s half a million agents. “M-Pesa Global seeks to connect Kenyans to opportunities by making...
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