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Safaricom

“Can Safaricom turn M-PESA's payments monopoly in Kenya into a full-stack embedded financial operating system for consumers and MSMEs across East Africa?”

Founded2000
HQSafaricom House, Waiyaki Way, Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya
IndustryFintech / SMB banking
The story

Founded as a mobile telecom operator, Safaricom pivoted into financial services with the 2007 launch of M-PESA, which grew to process over 60% of Kenya's mobile transactions. Over time, Safaricom evolved from a pure payments platform into a comprehensive embedded-finance ecosystem layering lending, insurance, and cross-border remittances on top of M-PESA's payment rails. The company now operates as a licensed payment service provider and financial super-app, embedding credit, insurance, and developer APIs directly into its telecom infrastructure — making it effectively Africa's most advanced telco-fintech hybrid.

Last 12 months
2025-05
2025-06
Product timeline
2007
M-PESA mobile money service launched in Kenya, becoming the flagship mobile payments product.· banking
2012
Safaricom onboarded Neural Technologies to implement a Fraud Management System on all networks.· banking
2019
M-PESA Global launched to enable cross-border money transfers to multiple countries.· banking
2022
Safaricom launched Fuliza Biashara, a business overdraft credit facility on M-PESA Business tills.· lending
2023
Partnered with Britam to launch Data Plus, embedding personal accident insurance into data bundles.· banking
2023
Partnered with EDOMx to launch Faraja, a Buy Now Pay Later service for Lipa Na M-PESA merchants.· lending
2024
Achieved PCI DSS certification and expanded M-PESA developer ecosystem to over 79,900 developers via Daraja 3.0.· banking
2025
Revamped business credit solutions in partnership with financial institutions, expanding MSME access to Fuliza Biashara, overdraft, and Taasi Till term loans.· lending
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Safaricom
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
4 layers disclosed in Safaricom’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
M-PESA (self-operated)Lipa Na M-PESA (self-operated)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
7 more providers across 3 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.