“Sometime this year, Safaricom announced that it was planning to release M-PESA Junior Accounts for minors. This development has not occurred, and the reason is that there are some regulatory issues that need to be addressed before the CBK can give the telco a nod for the launch. Junior accounts make sense for the telco because it has been exploring ways in which it can expand the use cases of the mobile money product. Ever since it was launched in 2007, M-PESA has evolved, and besides it being one of Kenya’s most known services, it has been supplemented by additional services that revolve around payments. However, the carrier has since said that it wants to go beyond payments, which means that we will be seeing additional features and services being plugged into M-PESA in the coming days. It should also be remembered that Safaricom has a bunch of apps that are associated with M-PESA. They include the M-PESA app, the M-PESA Business app for merchants, and mySafaricom. The M-PESA app is one of the most popular apps for the telco and in Kenya in general, bearing in mind that it has been downloaded more than 8 million times. It has great features, such as biometric authentication for payments, mini apps, access to statements and so much more.”

“The Safaricom split story has always been a hot discussion topic among lawmakers, and other people with vested interests in the matter. The story, while highly disputed by Safaricom’s internal teams and top leadership, with former CEO the late Bob Collymore once saying that the company must never be punished for being successful, was linked to the fact that Safaricom is too big and can be better run if its mobile money product M-PESA was spun as a separate entity from carrier business. The assessment that Safaricom was too huge a company to compete fairly with smaller operators has never been explicitly stated, although an examination done by British firm Analysys Mason determined that the vast majority of the carrier and mobile money business tipped the scales in Safaricom’s favour. The evaluation had been done thanks to ICT regulator the Communications Authority’s blessing. It is Analysys that first fronted the idea of splitting Safaricom back in 2017.”

“Global digital payments giant, Visa, and East Africa’s biggest telecom Safaricom, the operator of the M- Pesa mobile money product, have today launched a virtual card, enabling millions of M-Pesa users to make digital payments globally, and giving Visa extended reach across Africa.”

“M-Pesa has been coined as the future of money and rightly so. The amount of things M-Pesa has eased is immeasurable and the number of things you can do now is just staggering. Hence the need for a Super app to accommodate all the new features and categories. M-Pesa has taken the step to update its app and gift you for downloading it. We’ll also talk about some of the new features that come with it.”