Safaricom increases e-commerce stakes after Alibaba Group deal

Tuesday, March 12, 2019

By Cynthia Ilako

Safaricom is looking to expand its e-commerce reach in the country by providing mobile payment services on Aliexpress.com.

The firm on Tuesday announced it had partnered with the Chinese run online store under Alibaba Group, to use M-Pesa as a payment option.

This is set to boost the telco’s daily mobile money transactions which currently stand at 17 million or 25,000 transactions per minute, as more Kenyans lean towards online shopping driven by increased internet access.

“This partnership seeks to connect Kenyans to even more business opportunities by enabling them to seamlessly source, purchase and import goods from the world’s leading manufacturers,” Safaricom Chief customer officer Sylvia Mulinge said.

Under the deal, Ant Financial, which runs the portal’s payment services, will offer M-Pesa as one of the payment options with transactions denominated in the Kenyan shilling.

Source: The Star, Kenya (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Finance, Technology, Telecommunications
Tags
digital payments, e-commerce, telecommunications