Google adopts Kenya’s M-Pesa for payments on Playstore

shakirudeen taiwo

March 10, 2018 4:11 PM

This will surely open the Eastern Africa mobile market to Google.

Google has announced the adoption of M-Pesa as a mode of payment in its games and app store to tap into the massive mobile buying power of Africans.

With this, non-card holders can now pay for games and apps using the Safaricom backed mobile money.

Mahir Sahin, head of Android partnerships in Africa for Google said about the partnership: "With this partnership, M-Pesa will play a critical role in the app ecosystem.”

“Carrier billing is very important to the developer ecosystem in markets where a credit card is very low.”

Safaricom is the home of M-Pesa, which is a mobile money platform in Kenya that facilitates easy money transfers and bill payments through your mobile phone. M-Pesa currently has 27,8 million users in a country of 45 million people.

For Google, this deal is strategic as there is low credit card user penetration in Africa thus limiting the purchase of games and apps on the Google Play store by Android users on the continent.

This deal also involves DOCOMO Digital, a London-based global payment provider, which facilitate real time conversion of transactions initiated through M-Pesa.

Hiroyuki Sato, the CEO of DOCOMO Digital, said its biggest goal is to break down barriers and develop ways in which the 5 billion global adult population can engage with the digital ecosystem.

“M-Pesa has long been an innovator and leader in the mobile money space, and we are very excited to partner with them to bring this service to market. First steps like this are absolutely essential on the journey to connecting consumers, merchants, operators and service providers together to create a fair and inclusive ecosystem for everybody.”

shakirudeen taiwo