Safaricom is set to introduce a new feature to Lipa Na MPesa which blocks customers contact details when making payments.
The move by the telcommunication firm is set to curb personal information being traded to advertisers or fraudsters.
Safaricom will only display the first and last few digits of a phone number, blocking the middle and effectively hiding the contact of the customer.
At present, people paying for goods and services leave their numbers and names with thousands of merchants, the merchants use personal information to send unsolicited advertising through text messages.
The information can also be sold to third parties without consent in breach of the data protection law passed in 2019 to protect privacy.
Safaricom’s mobile payment platform used to pay for goods and services is now earning the telco Sh40 million monthly.
