In line with the principles of the National Payments Strategy, which was launched by the Central Bank of Kenya in February, the first phase of mobile money merchant interoperability is now underway. In this phase, Kenyans will be able to make mobile money payments to M-PESA Buy Goods Till from any network.
Do note that this works only with M-Pesa Buy
Goods Till Numbers. Not with Pay Bill numbers. It’s not clear why. We’ve been
able to make payments using NCBA Loop directly from the bank to Till Numbers and
Pay Bill numbers.
In the second phase, we will see the ability to make
payments from M-Pesa to Till Numbers on other networks. So Airtel Money and
T-Kash customers will be able to pay to Lipa na M-Pesa till numbers.
The move is meant to enable customers from either mobile
money service – namely; M-Pesa, Airtel Money, and T-Kash – make payments to any
merchant’s till numbers. This is meant to boost adoption and increase the
convenience of making cashless payments.
Through this process, the Central Bank hopes to build Trust,
Security, Usefulness, Choice and Innovation.
The “Choice” part is very important. And it’s a thing
I’ve debated with different articles published on this site.
Over the years, Safaricom has done a pretty commendable job allowing
them to grow to control 99% mobile money market share. There’s no chance,
really, for any company to build something that big right now. However, we cannot have
the country’s whole payment system controlled by one company. We need to find
ways to ensure other options exist.
Proper interoperability is the best way to bring in the
chance for other platforms to develop. However, these companies – Airtel and
Telkom – have to do a lot more to now build their platforms to be as good, as
convenient, and as widely adopted as M-Pesa.
This development also allows for innovation to happen in the
sector.
With the new announcement, the main company benefiting
remains Safaricom – for a while. They now stand to have more people using their
platform, and more viewing it as a defacto payment means. I say for a while
because Safaricom and M-Pesa are becoming separate entities in the coming
months. So really it’s M-Pesa Africa – the new entity – that will be benefiting
from these developments.
What they said:
Safaricom’s CEO, Peter Ndegwa said, “Safaricom is delighted
to partner with other industry players on this exciting innovation to empower
mobile money customers in the country to make payments through Lipa Na M-PESA.
This partnership builds on the successful rollout of mobile money
interoperability making it possible for customers to send and receive money
from any network in the country.”
Airtel Kenya CEO, Prasanta Das Sarma said, “I am delighted to see Kenya take this big step to enable customers make payments to mobile money merchants, irrespective of their mobile money provider. Our customers will also experience a dynamic, secure, convenient, and more affordable digital payment ecosystem for personal and business payments.”
How to Lipa Na M-PESA using Airtel Money or T-Kash
How to Lipa Na M-PESA using Airtel Money
To Lipa Na M-PESA from your Airtel Money wallet, simply
ensure you have an active Airtel Money Wallet with sufficient balance. Then,
follow these steps.
- Dial *222#
- Select Lipa
na M-PESA, Equity & Airtel
- Select M-PESA
Till
- Enter M-PESA
Till number
- Enter Amount
- Authorize
transaction with Airtel Money PIN and that’s it.
How to Lipa na M-PESA using T-Kash
To pay for goods and services on M-PESA using your Telkom
Kenya line, ensure you have an active T-Kash wallet and sufficient funds then
follow these simple steps.
- Dial *160#
- Select
– Buy goods and services
- Select- Use
Mpesa Till Number
- Enter
the merchant’s M-PESA Till number
- Confirm
transaction using your T-Kash PIN and that’s it!
So this is the first phase of interoperability and it allows
for these two options, Airtel Money and T-Kash to Lipa Na M-PESA Till Number.
The second phase should see M-PESA customers able to pay for goods and services
to merchants on Airtel Money and T-Kash. Timelines for this second phase
haven’t been made available.
Down the road, there is a possibility that we might see this
option added to the carriers’ respective mobile apps, My Airtel and T-Kash
app respectively but for now, there is no word on it. Additionally,
the SIM Toolkit menus haven’t been updated to support this feature so the USSD
Code method is your only option right now.
We might also like to add that, you’d be wise not to entirely depend on this feature, at least not just yet. Have some money on your M-PESA line, or walk around with some cash as there are bound to be teething pains. In the period of testing, we ran into multiple ‘Application Down’ errors so keep that in mind.