Kenya’s leading telecommunications company M-Pesa has partnered with Terrapay, a leading Omnichannel payment solution for cross-border money transfers, to expand M-Pesa to Southeast Asian countries, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
This partnership will see Safaricom more than 30 million M-PESA mobile wallet holders in Kenya, gain access to TerraPay’s extensive network of 4.5 billion bank accounts and 1.5 billion mobile wallets, providing them with fast and affordable payment options worldwide.
M-PESA customers can now conveniently send and receive money to Bangladesh and Pakistan through the M-PESA Global service, available on the M-PESA Super App.
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Speaking on the collaboration with Terrapay, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said,
“We are thrilled to partner with TerraPay as it comes at a time when a growing number of customers are embracing digital payments to send money to their loved ones, TerraPay’s interoperable technology platform will enable our customers to execute secured & low-cost payments across key regions further encouraging the adoption of digital payments in the region. We look forward to a successful collaboration”.
Also commenting on the collaboration Founder and CEO Terrapay Amber Sur said,
“We believe this breakthrough collaboration with Safaricom will spur a world of new possibilities for mobile financial service operators to directly scale globally and provide customers with a choice to send payments in a secure, transparent, and swift manner. Our partnership with Safaricom will further boost our capabilities in providing an inclusive global financial ecosystem powered by our agile payments infrastructure and empower Safaricom customers with fast & affordable borderless payment options and access to TerraPay’s widespread partner network of 7.5Bn+ bank accounts and 2.1Bn+ mobile wallets”.
M-PESA has continued to maintain its dominance in the money transfer space by being a leader in cross-border and cross/currency money movement through its numerous strategic partnerships with remittance top companies.
The mobile wallet has continued to revolutionize financial inclusion over a decade, by enabling millions of Kenyans to receive money from abroad, store and send money or make payments locally, and leapfrog traditional infrastructure.
Notably, M-PESA wallet holders already have the option to receive money from around the world via Western Union.
The parent company Safaricom, has continued to help millions of Kenyans establish financial services on mobile wallets within Kenya. It is worth noting that more than 1.7 billion transactions are processed over M-PESA annually, equivalent to more than 50 percent of Kenya’s GDP value. In 2022, Safaricom earned Sh 107.7 billion from its M-PESA operations in Kenya 2022.
By opening up M-PESA to the world, the Fintech giant aims to enable a world of opportunity for Kenyans by making it easy and seamless for them to connect with the world.
With this collaboration, Terrapay joins the list of over 35 partners under the M-PESA Global Service, facilitating money transfers and payments across more than 170 countries.
TerraPay believes that the smallest payment deserves a borderless journey as safe as the largest. The group has been building an ever-expanding payments highway that empowers businesses to create transparent customer experiences with an uninterrupted, secure, and real-time global passage for every payment, however small or large.
Registered and regulated across 27 global markets, TerraPay is one of the leading global partners to banks, mobile wallets, money transfer operators, merchants, and financial institutions, creating a more expansive and inclusive international financial ecosystem. The Fintech company’s mission is to create a safe and accessible global payments highway.