Kenya’s M-Pesa mobile money service now works with China’s WeChat Pay

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

By Abdi Latif Dahir

Tens of millions of people using Kenya’s dominant mobile money service M-Pesa will now be able to transfer cash to over a billion active users of China’s digital payment system WeChat Pay. The Nairobi-headquartered Family Bank along with London-based fintech firm SimbaPay launched a service that enables users send money to the users on the WeChat platform, which is owned by Chinese tech giant Tencent.

Individuals and businesses can send funds to China by either downloading Family Bank’s PesaPap app, through M-Pesa, or by dialing a USSD code in Kenya. Non-customers too will also access the service via a dedicated pay bill number on M-PESA. Before transferring the payment, a sender will be able to review the transaction and check exchange rates before its delivered in Chinese yuan.

Photo courtesy of Simon Berry.

Source: Quartz Africa (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Finance
Tags
digital finance, digital payments, fintech