Vodafone Group said a record 614 million M-Pesa transactions were processed during December 2016 as the global operator marked the 10th anniversary of its mobile money service. During 2016, the service processed around 6 billion transactions, peaking in December 2016 at 529 transactions every second.
Vodafone now offers M-Pesa services in ten countries, including Albania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ghana, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Romania and Tanzania. As of the end of December 2016, M-Pesa served almost 29.5 million active customers through a network of more than 287,400 agents.
M-Pesa was launched by Vodafone’s Kenyan associate, Safaricom, on 6 March 2007. The service is designed to enable customers safely and securely to send, receive and store money via a basic mobile phone and, more recently in some markets, using a smartphone app. Customers visit an M-Pesa agent to top up their M-Pesa account and are then able to use their mobile phone to make purchases in shops and send money to other people who can then visit their nearest M-Pesa agent to withdraw their funds.
