Safaricom wants M-PESA to do more than move money. In an interview with Victoria Rubadiri for CNN's Marketplace Africa, which airs on CNN International on 24 October, chief executive Peter Ndegwa said the platform will expand into savings, investment and insurance, TechMoran reported.
"We want to broaden and democratise access so you can either pay, you can save, you can invest, you can insure using M-PESA," Ndegwa said. He described banks and insurers as "competitors, but they're also partners".
What is already in the app
- Ziidi Trader, built with the Nairobi Securities Exchange and Kestrel Capital, lets customers buy and sell listed securities from the M-PESA app
- Business tools for traders and merchants to take payments and pay suppliers and staff
- A single "one app" super app in Kenya that uses AI to personalise what each customer sees
Ndegwa put M-PESA's volume at about 150 million transactions a day, and said Safaricom spends "approximately between $400 and $500 million in Kenya on our infrastructure" as data demand grows. He also credited AI with keeping fraud in check: "We can't manually be able to prevent fraud if we didn't have AI and we have a data layer."
Why it matters
M-PESA already sits at the centre of Kenyan money. Turning it into a place to hold savings, buy shares and take out cover would put Safaricom deeper into territory that banks and insurers treat as theirs, while also making them distribution partners. Ndegwa did not give launch dates or prices for new savings or insurance products.
The ambition comes as control of Safaricom is still before Kenya's courts. Vodacom remains the registered holder of the 15% stake it bought from the government while the Court of Appeal fast-tracks the main appeal, TechMoran notes.
