M-Pesa platform coming home soon

Safaricom is set to start hosting its mobile money platform locally in a move expected to reduce the system’s downtimes and improve efficiency.

In an interview with the Nation, the company’s chief executive, Mr Bob Collymore, said specifications for the new M-Pesa platforms have already been designed and the tendering process has started.

“The new platform will be ready for use in two years, after which we expect to have less stoppages and faster transactions. We are yet to award the contract but the tendering process is underway. More information on this development will be released in due course,” Mr Collymore said.

The new platform will at first be tested in Eastern Europe, a less vulnerable market than Kenya where the system serves about 15 million customers with over 270 transactions per second.

Currently, M-Pesa is hosted and managed in Germany by Vodafone Group Plc, the biggest shareholder of Safaricom with a 40 per cent stake. It levies between 10 and 25 per cent of M-Pesa revenues in royalties.

The new platform will be owned and managed by Safaricom but the company will still pay royalties for using Vodafone’s intellectual property. A new rate will be negotiated.

M-Pesa is Safaricom’s second biggest revenue stream after voice. In the firm’s first half results released last week, the service contributed about 37 per cent of the total revenues, which stood at Sh59.1 billion.