Kenya’s telco company is in talks with the Ethiopian government to introduce its mobile money service, M-Pesa to the country. This will further help the Fintech Industry in Ethiopia if the government can approve M-Pesa operations because the country is a potentially lucrative market with over 100 million people.
Safaricom’s parent company, Vodafone will license the use of the M-Pesa trade name to an Ethiopia-based bank while Safaricom will host the servers in Nairobi, according to an industry source to Reuters. Ethiopia’s state telecommunications monopoly, Ethio telecom, will carry the service.
M-Pesa has nearly 30 million users in Kenya since its launch in 2007. It is a major contributor to Safaricom’s revenues, accounting for a third of the total.
