Vodacom has announced its joint venture with Safaricom, in acquiring Kenyan leading mobile financial service provider M-PESA.
This joint venture will certainly expand the mobile money transfer platform to other parts of Africa, which remain untapped.
M-PESA, which means money in Swahili, has dominated the Fintech industry in Kenya, pioneering the countries developments in this sector. Founded in 2007 the platform has made money transfer accessible to the ordinary African without a smart phone or a bank account. It has over 400 million users and is reported to have over a billion transactions each month. It currently operates in Kenya, Tanzania, Lesotho, DRC, Ghana, Mozambique, and Egypt.
The acquisition gives Vodacom and Safaricom full control of the platforms brand and product development and support services. Now under one of South Africa’s top network providers, M-PESA is set to make an entry into the South African market and the rest of SADC, where it is expected to dominate as no other money transfer platform has made financial services so inclusive and accessible.
Vodacom has much to gain from its new subsidiary as it marks Vodacom’s entry into the field of financial service provision. “The joint venture will accelerate our financial services aspirations and will allow Vodacom and Safaricom to drive the next generation of the M-PESA platform – an intelligent, cloud-based platform for the smartphone age” said Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO.
Nothing has yet been said pertaining to the developmental strategy of the platform, but it goes without saying that it is something to keep your eye on.
