M-Pesa is one of Kenya’s biggest achievements and a success story of how the service revolutionized money transfer and financial inclusion. In an effort to push M-Pesa beyond the borders of Kenya, Safaricom has launched a new service dubbed M-Pesa Global.
M-Pesa Global opens up M-Pesa to a number of international financial services. M-Pesa Global will allow M-Pesa users to send and receive money from across the globe through various money remittance services such as Western Union, World Remit and HomeSend.
The new service also encompasses PayPal integration, allowing customers to deposit from M-Pesa to PayPal and withdraw from their PayPal accounts to M-Pesa. Through M-Pesa Global, customers will also be able to send money to mobile money users in Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda as well as transfer money from M-Pesa directly to bank accounts in the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Germany, with additional countries coming in a few weeks.
To access M-Pesa Global, Safaricom subscribers can dial *840# or by navigating to “M-PESA Global” under the M-PESA menu on mySafaricomApp. (If you cannot see this option, update your mySafaricom app on Android. iOS users will be getting the update in a few days, Safaricom says).
With M-Pesa Global, customers can transact amounts between Kes.100 and Kes.70,000 within one transaction. Transaction charges for M-Pesa Global are as below:
| Min | Max | Transaction Charges (Kes) |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 5,000 | 100 |
| 5,001 | 15,000 | 250 |
| 15,001 | 35,000 | 350 |
| 35,001 | 70,000 | 500 |
