M-PESA

M-PESA (M for mobile, pesa is Swahili for money) is an innovative mobile money transfer solution that enables customers to transfer money. It is a product of Safaricom LTD.

M-PESA is a branchless banking service, meaning that it is designed to enable users to complete basic banking transactions without the need to visit a bank branch. The continuing success of M-PESA in Kenya has been due to the creation of a highly popular, affordable payment service with only limited involvement of a bank.

M-PESA customers can deposit and withdraw money from a network of agents that includes airtime resellers and retail outlets acting as banking agents. M-PESA is operated by Safaricom, a mobile network operator (MNO).

The user interface technology of M-PESA differs between Safaricom of Kenya and Vodacom of Tanzania, although the underlying platform is the same. While Safaricom uses SIM toolkit to provide handset menus for accessing the service, Vodacom relies on USSD to provide users with menus.