NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Kenya’s Safaricom has announced that it is partnering with Vodacom to acquire the intellectual property rights to the M-Pesa mobile financial services platform.

Last year Safaricom launched a new Bonga platform, described as a “conversational and transactional social network” that uses the M-Pesa mobile money product as a social network.

The deal, for 12 million euro ($13.4 million), will allow both companies to save in royalties paid to Vodafone. Safaricom currently pays 2 percent of its annual M-Pesa revenue, while Vodafone pays 5 percent in an intellectual property fee from its M-Pesa business. South African-based Vodacom also owns 35 percent of Safaricom, the most profitable company in East Africa.

Photo courtesy of Scott Mainwaring.