Lipa Na M-Pesa is one of the services that Safaricom has incorporated to its mobile money service to help people pay for goods and services. The service was introduced back in 2012 and over the years has signed up a number of business with the total now standing at over 200,000. This was revealed today by Safaricom.
The number may seem low and I was expecting it to be way higher but considering it just represents the number of businesses on the platform, it is still impressive. A milestone like this is an achievement no matter how you look at it.
Lipa Na M-Pesa caters to businesses by providing higher transaction and account limits, more secure payments and easy integration with business systems and other financial services.
“The mobile phone has today become the most preferred alternative to cash and its popularity only continues to grow. More than ever, an increasing number of businesses are discovering the numerous advantages of cashless payments resulting in high growth for Lipa Na M-PESA. We continue to add more features and tools with a goal of empowering our business customers to grow and better manage their businesses,” said Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom.
COVID-19 Has Been A Catalyst
The current pandemic has been a catalyst in pushing the milestone to over 200,000. Safaricom says that it has seen more businesses adopt the cashless payments during this pandemic. In a statement, the company said, “the rush by businesses in taking up the service has also been to meet growing uptake of Lipa Na M-PESA amongst Kenyans, with customers using the service increasing by 1 million since January 2020 to more than 6 million today.”
As of now, the retail sector leads in business usage of the service, followed by Hospitality (Hotels, Restaurants and Bars, and Catering), then General Trade, and Distributors.
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