Dagoretti South MP John Kiarie wants the M-Pesa service to be separated from the giant telecommunications company Safaricom and its other carrier services.
KJ proposed that the Safaricom business should be split so that the mobile telephone services will remain under the regulation of the Communications Authority of Kenya, while M-Pesa will be under the administration of the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
Speaking during an induction meeting of newly elected MPs on Tuesday, September 20, at the Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi, the Kenya Kwanza Alliance lawmaker argued Safaricom and other telcos were operating like banks.
“We have companies that are registered as communication companies that are doubling up as banks. As it is right now, they fall and are regulated by the Communications Authority, but because they are also transacting money, some regulations come from CBK that they depend on,” Kiarie said.
M-Pesa marks 15th anniversary M-Pesa handles over 61 million daily transactions, making it the largest fintech provider in Africa. The service has grown to over 51 million customers in seven markets led by Kenya. It also operates in Tanzania, Mozambique, Lesotho, Ghana, Egypt and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The statistics were released by the telco in March when M-Pesa marked 15 years of service since its launch in Kenya in March 2007.
Safaricom recorded KSh 50 billion in gross profit from M-Pesa, according to its financial report for the year ending March 2022. The company attributed the growth in M-Pesa profit to an increase in mobile money uptake, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic shift to cashless transactions. “The growth in technology helped businesses to adopt online payments, a move that contributed to increased uptake of the mobile money services,” said the telco.
