Kenyan telco Safaricom and Ant Financial Services – a unit of Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd. – have gone into a partnership that will facilitate electronic payments using M-PESA outside of Kenya.
The signed deal will allow Kenyans shopping for goods and other supplies from manufacturers in China on Alibaba’s online retail service, AliExpress, to pay for their purchases using M-PESA.
Safaricom is striving to make M-PESA a global mobile money transfer and payments platform, and the partnership with Alibaba Group is a huge step forward in achieving this.
How ?
When shopping on Aliexpress, a buyer will be presented with a number of payment options including M-PESA when checking out their shopping cart on the app or website.
Once you select M-PESA, you will then be required to key in your mobile phone number and will subsequently receive a prompt on your phone to type the M-PESA PIN to complete the payment.
If you select M-PESA as a payment channel on AliExpress, you will have your total cost displayed in Kenya Shillings with the ‘standard Lipa Na M-PESA Paybill’ charges applicable for each transaction.
The service is already live on the AliExpress app and will be available on the website later. Safaricom says that shoppers will also have the option of using their post office box numbers as the delivery location for their items.
