M-Pesa deal grows its reach to Bangladesh and Pakistan

More Than 32 Million M-PESA Customers Can Now Send And Receive Money To And From More Than 200 Million People Across Bangladesh, Pakistan

By Steve UMIDHA On Jul 20, 2023

By Victor MUJIDU

Safaricom (NSE: SCOM) this week announced a partnership deal with UK-based payments infrastructure company TerraPay, in a move that will see M-PESA customers send and receive money to more than 200 million beneficiaries across Bangladesh and Pakistan.

“We believe this breakthrough collaboration with Safaricom will spur the development of mobile financial service operators enabling them to directly scale globally and provide customers with the 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 with superlative technical solutions- cultivate an affinity by empowering Safaricom customers with fast & affordable borderless payment options and access to TerraPay’s widespread partner network of 4.5 billion bank accounts and 1.5 billion mobile wallets,” said Ambar Sur, Founder & CEO – TerraPay.

M-PESA customers can send and receive money to Bangladesh and Pakistan through the M-PESA Global service under the M-PESA Super App or by dialling *334# and selecting M-PESA Global under the “Send Money” option.

“Remittances have become an economic lifeline for thousands of households and businesses in the country, connecting them to opportunities and empowering our customers to transact conveniently and affordably around the world.

We are therefore delighted to partner with TerraPay to enable anyone in the country to send and receive money to and from more than 200 million people across Bangladesh and Pakistan with M-PESA.

This partnership opens up one of the world’s largest remittance markets making Kenyans more globally connected,” said Peter Ndegwa – CEO, Safaricom.

TerraPay joins a roster of more than 35 partners under the M-PESA Global service which enables customers in Kenya to send and receive money and make and receive payments across more than 170 countries.

In Safaricom’s last financial year to March 2023, more than 917,000 customers used the M-PESA Global service, transacting more than Kshs.418 billion in over 31.8 million transactions. Accordingly, M-PESA processed more than 90% of all remittances into the country.