Safaricom Controls 50 Percent of Kenya's Diaspora Remittances

Giant telecoms operator, Safaricom now controls 50 percent of the money sent home by Kenyans in the diaspora through its MPesa Global platform.

Kenyans living and working abroad wired home Sh284 billion through MPesa Global between April 1st, 2019, and March 31st, 2020, according to Safaricom Sustainability Business Report 2020. 

This translates to a 12.1 percent growth compared to the same period the previous year when cash sent through the platform stood at Sh101 billion (37.3 percent).

Safaricom unveiled MPesa Global in late 2018 to enable MPesa subscribers to send or receive cash from overseas using services such as Western Union, MoneyGram, Ria, WorldRemit, Wave, Remitly among others.

The number of MPesa Global subscribers has grown four folds to 744,000 from 180,000 last year while the total number of MPesa users increased by 10 percent to 24.9 million.

Through MPesa Global, subscribers are able to send or receive cash from 167 countries compared to 67 last year. The platform has also been integrated with PayPal to allow users to move cash across the platforms and support e-commerce payments.

The report further indicates that MPesa created a social value of Sh234.1 billion during the period under review.

“The social value of M-Pesa remains a significant creator of value for Kenyan society, increasing by 10 percent in the last financial year. The major drivers of this growth have been the increase in numbers of customers, agents and merchants; the increase in the average number of transactions per customer; and the increase in the average value of transactions made per customer,” the report notes.

Safaricom contributed 6 percent to the country’s GDP, a slight decline from 6.3 percent registered in 2019, the report adds.