NAIROBI, Kenya—Google has integrated Kenya’s primary mobile payment service M-Pesa into its Google Play store as an alternative mode of payment—assisting African consumers without credit cards.
Safaricom’s M-Pesa lets customers transfer money and pay bills via mobile phone and has 27.8 million users in the nation of 45 million people where Google’s Android platform dominates.
Mahir Sahin, head of Android partnerships in Africa said the firm is pleased to bring Google Play carrier billing to Kenya. “Carrier billing is very important to the developer ecosystem in markets where credit card is very low, with this partnership, M-Pesa will play a critical role in the app ecosystem,” Sahin told NetImperative.com.
Safaricom says integrating M-Pesa into Google Play is part of its larger objectives to evolve the service well beyond the foundational money transfer offering.
The move follows increased pressure across the continent for mobile money services to enable interoperability. Recently, M-Pesa partnered with Airtel Money to undertake a pilot of mobile money interoperability in Kenya ahead of a tentative launch of the cross-network service countrywide in March, NetImperative.com said.