Ethiopia has granted Safaricom a licence to launch M-Pesa services, a mobile phone-based money transfer service, payments and micro-financing service, launched in 2007.
“As of this morning, Safaricom Ethiopia has officially been granted the licence to operate mobile money. We look forward to launching M-Pesa in the coming weeks,” chief executive officer Peter Ndegwa said Thursday morning during an investor briefing.
Safaricom plans to roll out a mobile money service by the end of the year, boosting M-Pesa’s profile since it launched in Kenya in 2007.
A Safaricom-led Ethiopian consortium paid the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) $150 million (20.5 billion Kushra at the current exchange rate) in licensing fees.
The banking industry regulator announced Thursday that it has issued a mobile money service license to its new subsidiary, Safaricom Mpesa Mobile Financial Services, becoming the first foreign entity to be licensed.
“We welcome this shift to the use of digital financial services so as to bring greater efficiency, safety, and transparency to the country’s rapidly growing financial system,” NBE said in a statement Thursday.
Safaricom Ethiopia grew its customer numbers to three million users seven months after its entry into the country.
