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Azimo announces 80 per cent growth in transactions sent to M-Pesa in Kenya

There were over 20 million monthly active M-Pesa users at the end of March 2018 and 101,000 active merchants that respond to rising demand for the service. (Image source: WorldRemit Comms/Flickr)

Azimo, the leading European digital money transfer service, has announced 80 per cent growth in transactions sent to M-Pesa wallet in Kenya since the beginning of the year

The company also offers other pay-out methods to the country, such as cash pickup and bank deposit but the dominance of the mobile wallet sets it apart from other emerging money transfer firms and is evident with 96 per cent of the transactions terminated in M-Pesa wallets.

Azimo has been working with cross-border payments hub Homesend - the joint venture of Mastercard and eServGlobal - to enable the instant payment of money transfers to the Kenyan mobile wallet. The partnership continues to strengthen as Azimo rapidly grows its market share amongst Kenyans abroad. Transactions originate from the UK and main European countries, where Kenyan diaspora resides. According to the latest census, there are more than 160,000 registered Kenyans living in the UK and that send US$590.97mn in inwards remittances.

There are multiple advantages to termination to a mobile wallet, with speed, transparency and safety being the crucial ones. Kenya is the pioneer of mobile payments and its impact on promoting financial inclusion is seen as a benchmark for other economies to follow.

“We are excited to see continuous growth in the Kenyan corridor and specifically the mobile wallet. M-Pesa in Kenya demonstrates the most successful implementation of a mobile financial services scheme to date and has managed to scale at impressive levels. We continue to contribute to this growth by offering the best possible service to more Kenyans abroad with the cooperation of Homesend,” said Michael Kent, CEO of Azimo.

“Cash still represents a barrier to financial inclusion in many developing countries, but proportionally less in Kenya, who has been a clear frontrunner in digitising payments and enjoys a very high mobile money penetration,” commented Laurent Desnouck, chief commercial officer of Homesend.

“Homesend has been initially designed to work with mobile money operators and money transfer organisations and as such is fully committed to partnering with digital payment solution providers to jointly transform the cross-border transfer landscape,” Desnouck further noted.

Azimo continues to grow its share of the US$600bn global cross-border payments market, having built an unrivalled global platform that enables payments in more than 80 currencies to more than 190 receiving countries.

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