Safaricom’s mobile money service M-Pesa, has officially launched its operations in Ethiopia, three months after the telco received a license from the National Bank of Ethiopia.
Safaricom Ethiopia said M-Pesa underwent a three-month pilot and testing phase where technical readiness was established, crucial partnerships with local banks were forged, and a network of M-Pesa agents was recruited, trained, and onboarded.
Ethiopian M-Pesa users can now access an array of financial services such as peer-to-peer money transfers within the country, as well as receiving funds from both domestic and international sources. Additionally, users can conduct transactions such as merchant payments, airtime purchases, and fund transfers between their M-Pesa accounts and traditional bank accounts.
M-Pesa, which already boasts a staggering 51 million customers across seven African countries, holds high hopes for its Ethiopian venture. With a population of 120 million people, Ethiopia is poised to fuel significant growth for the mobile money platform.
Safaricom was the first private telecommunications provider to enter Ethiopia, a market dominated by the state-controlled Ethio Telecom. Since the sector’s liberalization in 2019, Safaricom has made huge investments to establish its foothold in the Ethiopian market.
M-Pesa faces stiff competition from the local giant, Ethio Telecom. By July of this year, Ethio Telecom had already garnered more than 34 million subscribers for its mobile money service, Telebirr.
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