Safaricom’s mobile money platform, M-PESA, has hit a significant milestone of 34 million subscribers in November 2024, underscoring the company’s commitment to improving the financial health and wellbeing of individuals and businesses across Africa.
M-PESA, which will mark its 18th anniversary in March 2025, has evolved from a simple payment and transaction service into a comprehensive financial ecosystem. It now offers a wide range of services including credit, savings, investments, wealth management, insurance, and more, to meet the diverse financial needs of individuals, businesses, and the public sector.
The platform’s growth is also supported by its extensive network of over 300,000 agents across Kenya, ensuring financial inclusion even in remote areas. M-PESA plays a critical role in Kenya’s economic growth, providing vital access to financial services nationwide.
M-PESA further supports more than 1.5 million micro, small, medium, and large enterprises through its merchant payment solutions. In a recent development, Safaricom also acquired an insurance intermediary license, partnering with several insurance providers to offer customers a range of insurance products via M-PESA.
In October 2024, Safaricom celebrated its 24th anniversary and launched a year-long celebration marking its silver jubilee. As part of the celebrations, the Sambaza Furaha na Safaricom Caravan was launched on November 9 and is currently on its fourth regional tour in Nairobi, following successful runs in the Rift Valley, Mountain, and Greater Western regions.
The Caravan not only brings festive rewards to customers but also addresses their issues, contributing to its growing success.
Safaricom’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Peter Ndegwa, expressed his pride at this achievement, saying, “We are immensely proud to reach 34M M-PESA customers in Kenya. This accomplishment underscores our dedication to delivering frictionless, always-on, and secure financial services to our customers. This milestone, a show of great trust by our customers, serves as a motivation to keep innovating and delivering value to our customers.”
Through strategic partnerships, M-PESA has expanded its reach and enhanced its service offerings. The Daraja platform, for instance, enables businesses to securely integrate their websites, mobile apps, and point-of-sale systems with M-PESA through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This has fostered innovation, resulting in a robust developer community of over 90,000 members and supporting more than 40,000 integrations.
Safaricom continues to lead the way in financial innovation and inclusion, transforming the lives of its customers and the wider community. In October 2024, M-PESA launched M-PESA Ratiba, a pioneering mobile money standing order solution. In just one month, the service attracted over 1 million opt-ins and processed more than 260,000 transactions.
M-PESA Ratiba enables customers to automatically transfer funds from their M-PESA wallets to settle recurring bills, subscriptions, or make payments on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis, revolutionizing utility and bill payments.
Safaricom remains firmly committed to advancing financial inclusion across the continent. As the company works toward becoming Africa’s leading purpose-driven technology company by 2030, its financial services and innovations will be key to achieving this ambitious goal.
