Safaricom has announced that it is including Airtel and Telkom to its Lipa Na MPesa cashless payment service.
The new move will allow Telkom and Airtel subscribers to pay for goods and services through the Lipa Na MPesa option, a shift that is aimed at improving financial inclusivity.
The interoperability will benefit customers and businesses since they will no longer have to search for consumers or businesses that subscribe to the same service provider in order to obtain or sell services.
Safaricom’s action comes after the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) unveiled the national payments system, paving the way for operators to take cash from competitors for smooth cross-merchant transfers.
In March, the telco reported that businesses operating Lipa na M-Pesa till numbers had doubled from 173,000 in April 2020 to more than 387,000.
“The growth in M-Pesa customer usage has been driven by the launch of various innovations over the years, including financial services such as M-Shwari, KCB M-Pesa and Fuliza,” said Safaricom chief executive Peter Ndegwa.
MPesa remains Safaricom’s single largest business line and in the company’s half-year results to September 2021, it earned the firm Ksh.52.3 billion, representing over 37 per cent of the revenues during the period.
