Kenya’s largest telco Safaricom Plc has announced that mobile network operators Kenyans can now make direct mobile money payments to an M-PESA Pay Bill Number from Telkom and Airtel networks.
This comes after the company’s earlier announcement in April this year, which saw Kenyans being able to make mobile money payments to M-PESA Buy Goods and Services Tills from any network.
The telco says this proposition is in line with the Central Bank’s National Payments Strategy unveiled in February this year which seeks to address the diverse needs of the Kenyan people and its economy, and support the country’s ambition of becoming a digital, cash-lite and 24/7 economy while enhancing Kenya’s global leadership in digital and mobile money innovation.
“Without full interoperability, customers were limited to the network they were on in order to make payments, and had to resort to alternative methods that were neither customerfriendly nor affordable. Now, for the first time, it will not matter what network a customer, vendor, or other biller is on in order to complete a payment directly. This in turn means the elimination of inconveniences and wasteful duplication. The more than 560,000 vendors and billers, and almost 28 million customers will be the ultimate beneficiaries of the seamless payments ecosystem.” The Central Bank said in a statement.
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