M-PESA CEO Outlines the Impressive Product’s Growth After 15th Anniversary

As Safaricom celebrates the 15th anniversary of its flagship mobile money service, M-PESA, Sitoyo Lopokpiyit, CEO, M-PESA, took time to chart the growth of the product as well as a few highlights about the company’s ambitions.

Sitoyo was keen to remind the world that M-PESA was the first fintech product, before even the term was coined, saying it came up in March 2007 as part of Safaricom’s mission to transform lives.

• Since M-PESA, financial inclusion rose from 23% to 87% making Kenya top in Africa by this metric
• However, there is a transition now to financial health where Kenya’s rate is below 20%
• M-PESA proposition has transformed from simply sending money to broader payments service, and finally, it is positioning to be a lifestyle product
• MPESA ecosystem has grown from a few 100 businesses to 2.6 million businesses that run on M-PESA
• M-PESA now has both B2B and B2C operations
• Bank accounts have risen from 5 million when M-PESA introduced the Bank feature in 2012 in Kenya, with over 40 million accounts being opened via M-PESA
• Over $300 billion goes through M-PESA + banks ecosystem annually

SEE ALSO: The Next Evolution of M-PESA – Safaricom Launches the MPESA For Business App and Platform with a Focus on SMEs

With M-PESA rebranding to M-PESA AFRICA in 2021, the CEO recognized the opportunity for even more growth across the continent. He added that several African countries are also seeing thriving mobile money ecosystems – with COVID as an accelerant.

Some of the countries he mentioned include:

• Tanzania
• Mozambique
• DRC
• Egypt
• Ghana
• Lesotho

In its shift to become a lifestyle product, M-PESA is looking to grow its super app, launched in 2021, to become a platform where B2B and B2C users can go to, not just for MPESA payments, but to interact with other third party services.

According to Sitoyo, COVID-19 already accelerated how SMEs use M-PESA with 47% of SMEs now reportedly using the app for payments over the USSD product.

In that respect, M-PESA has an open API platform with over 42, 000 third party developers building in their ecosystem while targeting 300,000 across Africa as it seeks to create a broad playstore like ecosystem.

In March 2022, M-PESA parent company, Safaricom announced that the popular mobile money service now has over 30 million customers using the platform in Kenya alone.

RECOMMENDED READING: Safaricom M-PESA B2B Transactions Surpass the Value of P2P Transfers in Kenya

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