Safaricom and Pesapal Roll Out Next-Generation M-PESA Payments Across Kenya
Safaricom and Pesapal on Thursday announced the launch of faster, more seamless payment experiences aimed at transforming everyday transactions for businesses and customers across Kenya.
The partnership expands Safaricom’s ongoing innovations around M-PESA, including Scan-to-Pay, AI Pay and Tap-to-Pay. Pesapal is contributing its merchant payment infrastructure to bring Dynamic Scan-to-Pay and Tap-to-Pay to physical point-of-sale terminals.
“As the way Kenyans shop and transact continues to evolve, we are focused on ensuring that M-PESA evolves with them. This means moving beyond simply enabling payments to reimagining the payment experience itself.” said James Maitai, Group Chief Technology Officer at Safaricom PLC.
“Our partnership with Pesapal is an important part of that journey, bringing together our respective capabilities to shape the next generation of everyday payments.” he added.
How the new Safaricom and Pesapal options work
- Dynamic Scan-to-Pay: Customers scan a QR code displayed on a Pesapal POS terminal. Merchant details and the exact payment amount are automatically filled in, reducing errors and speeding up checkout.
- Tap-to-Pay: Users with NFC-enabled smartphones simply tap their phone on a Pesapal POS device, verify the details and complete the payment.
- AI Pay: Customers can scan a printed or handwritten receipt inside My OneApp. The system automatically detects and populates the Till or PayBill number along with the amount due.
Standard Scan-to-Pay, which links a QR code directly to a merchant’s M-PESA Till Number, is already live at more than 60,000 outlets. Safaricom aims to grow that network to 500,000 merchants within the next 12 months, an expansion of more than eight times the current footprint.
The new Dynamic Scan-to-Pay and Tap-to-Pay features are being activated on Pesapal’s existing infrastructure. Merchants using Pesapal N950 or select N950u terminals can accept the upgraded M-PESA options immediately without additional hardware.
The rollout is expected to reach major retail and restaurant networks already on Pesapal’s platform, including chains such as Java House and Artcaffé.
“Tap-to-Pay and Scan-to-Pay on the Pesapal POS represent the biggest leap in Kenya’s checkout experience in years. Thousands of businesses trust our platform, and by teaming up with Safaricom, we are delivering the faster, error-free transactions their customers expect. Today, we activate the future of payments,” said Agosta Liko, Founder of Pesapal.
