According to the latest stats revealed by the Chief Financial Services Officer, Safaricom, at the Afro Asia Fintech Festival, transactions worth Kshs. 8 million passed through the M-PESA mobile platform in 2018 alone.
Speaking at the Fintech Festival, Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, CFO, Safaricom, said that mobile money has enabled Kenya to attain an 83 percent adult financial inclusion rate up from 27 percent in 2006.
M-PESA, which has over 27 million registered users, has been key in driving this level of inclusion.
Other stats revealed about M-PESA include:
- Kshs. 15 million moves through M-PESA every minute
- 2 mobile loans disbursed every second
- Fuliza had disbursed Kshs. 45 billion in 3 months as of May 2019
- M-PESA accounted for 31.2% (Kshs. 74.99 billion) of Safaricom reveneus in 2018
- An equivalent of 91% of Kenyan GDP conducted through mobile platforms in 2018
The company has invested over $100M on the M-PESA platform which is now open to over 16, 000 developers using their APIs which is one of the contributing factors to M-PESA’s impact on the economy.
M-PESA Growth stats for the Safaricom FY 2019 ResultsSpeaking on the ease of access for businesses to the M-PESA platform, Sitoyo said:
We’ve opened up our platform. We have APIs that are publicly available. SMEs can test and apply to connect to the platform formally. Depending on the SME and the technical skills it has, they can connect within 10 minutes to the platform.” ~ Sitoyo
The company has partnered with global companies like PayPal, Google, and AliPay to facilitate eCommerce transactions and enable Kenyans pay for services via MPESA.
The recent partnership with the Equity Bank is also seen as a way for the company to expand its footprint into the East African region by leveraging the bank’s successful expansion strategy.
