Safaricom Enables PayPal Withdrawals Via M-Pesa in Bid to Strengthen Market Position

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mobile money

mobile moneyA few hours before mobile money interoperability goes live in Kenya, Safaricom has announced a partnership with PayPal and TransferTo that will allow M-Pesa users to receive money from any PayPal account across the world directly into their M-PESA accounts in real time.

Also, it will be possible for PayPal users in Kenya to load their PayPal wallets via M-Pesa PayBill number 800088. PayPal is believed to be using the partnership to target Kenya’s growing e-commerce sector, which is witnessing a surge in transactions as more people turn to online shopping as their appetite for convenience grows.

With this new development, Safaricom is going for Equity Bank’s lunch as far as remittances are concerned. Until now, PayPal withdrawals in Kenya were only possible through Equity Bank. In comparison to Equity Bank, Safaricom’s M-Pesa network is far much more accessible, through its 148,000 M-PESA agents around the country vis-à-vis Equity’s estimated 266 bank branches and 40,000 agents.

Money Transfer

The transaction between PayPal and M-Pesa is being powered by TransferTo, a B2B Cross-Border Mobile Payments Network for emerging markets. The money transfer will not be instant, meaning users will not see the amount reflect on their M-Pesa accounts until after a certain period, between four hours and up to 3 days, depending on the amount transferred.

There will also be no transaction charges on withdrawals but Forex charges will apply to the transactions. Deposits to PayPal via Mpesa Paybill will attract Paybill transaction costs.

All transactions are subject to M-Pesa transfer limits, meaning one can only transact a maximum of Kes. 70,000 per transaction with a daily transaction limit of Kes. 140,000. Compared to Equity Bank, this could be a bottleneck as the bank can handle larger amounts of money per transaction.

This move by mother green is in a bid to strengthen its market position as the number one mode of payments in the country, especially with mobile money interoperability right around the corner.

Read More: How To Withdraw and Deposit to Your PayPal Wallet via M-Pesa

30 COMMENTS

  1. Kenyan PayPal accounts only, because Paypal is such a local service. Stupid useless shit. Die Safaricom, die!

    • Sooo angry! Maybe get off the internet and go out into the world.

      Anyway, I think it is to avoid fraud. M-PESA is a kenyan service. Why would they let foreign PayPal accounts use the service?

      And other services in other countries do the same thing. Only allowing payments from PayPal accounts from that country only. Nothing new here.

  2. […] Safaricom announced this partnership with PayPal two years ago as an alternative to withdrawing money from the international service. It allowed MPESA users to receive money from any PayPal account across the world in real time which was great news for people that use PayPal a lot. MPESA is used by over 25 million Kenyans of which some transact using PayPal which was a market waiting to be served natively by the two companies. Their main competitor is the Equity PayPal arrangement that has been on the market for a while now. […]

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