M-PESA International Transactions Grow by 64 Percent

M-PESA international transactions grew by 64 percent according to the latest annual financial report marking another milestone in the growth of the platform.

The M-PESA platform grew to 13.1 billion shillings in terms of remittance from the international market for the financial year ending March 2016.

Safaricom was given a mandate in 2014 by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to start offering out of the country cash remittances through M-PESA and the platform, according to financial analysts, has not disappointed.

The telecommunication company is leading company in the country in terms of revenue as well as the largest in East and Central Africa in terms of profit making. During the last financial year, Safaricom made more than 30 billion shillings in terms of profits after tax. Currently, it is the largest tax payer to the government as other firms such as Uchumi Supermarket and Kenya Airways continue to struggle. Kenya Airways is however showing signs of turning around with the loss gab being greatly reduced.

Read: Safaricom Starts Internal Testing for Lipa na M-Pesa Card

In the year 2015, M-PESA entered the Tanzanian market before moving to Rwanda three months later and last year in Uganda. At the moment, it is easier for individuals to transact cash via M-PESA across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda and not as it was before where Safaricom was limited in terms of receiving cash from other countries.

Last month, the company launched a new service called Safaricom Guarantee where the company would refund customers with up to one minute talk time if they experienced a network disconnection during a local call to another Safaricom number.

Safaricom is now working in partnership with other money transfer firms such as Money Gram, Western Union, MTN and others for easy cross border money transactions. By the month of May this year, M-PESA had more than 25 million active customers. According to the financial report for year ended March, active customers for M-PESA across Africa, Asia and Europe increased by 27.1 percent to 25.3 million.