Safaricom plans savings, investment and insurance on M-Pesa after revenue hits KSh182.7bn

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Safaricom wants M-Pesa to become the place where Kenyans save, invest and buy insurance, not just send and receive money. Chief executive Peter Ndegwa set out the plan in an interview with CNN’s Marketplace Africa that aired on October 24, putting the mobile money service in closer competition with banks, insurers and fintechs.

“We want to broaden and democratise access so you can either pay, you can save, you can invest, you can insure using M-Pesa,” Ndegwa said. He did not give launch dates or prices for any new savings or insurance products.

M-Pesa already carries the business

The push builds on what is already Safaricom’s biggest earner. M-Pesa revenue rose 13.4% to KSh182.7bn in the year to March 31, 2026, and the service now makes up 45.6% of the company’s service revenue in Kenya. Group service revenue grew 11.1% to KSh414.1bn, while net income, measured without hyperinflation accounting for Ethiopia, jumped 67.3% to KSh99.7bn.

Ndegwa said the platform handles about 150 million transactions a day, a volume he said could not be policed for fraud without artificial intelligence and a strong data layer. Safaricom also spends between $400m and $500m (about KSh52bn to KSh65bn) a year on network infrastructure in Kenya as demand for data grows, he said.

What is already in the app

Parts of the plan are already live. Safaricom runs the Ziidi money market fund inside M-Pesa, and its Ziidi Trader service, built with the Nairobi Securities Exchange and Kestrel Capital, lets customers buy and sell listed shares from the M-Pesa app. Our guide on how to buy shares on the NSE explains how Ziidi Trader compares with opening a CDS account through a stockbroker.

For merchants, Safaricom is building tools that let small traders and larger firms accept payments and pay suppliers and staff from the same platform. A single “one app” super app, which uses AI to personalise what each customer sees, has also launched in Kenya.

Rivals and partners

Moving into savings and insurance takes M-Pesa deeper into ground that banks and underwriters treat as their own. Ndegwa played down the rivalry, describing banks and insurance companies as “competitors, but they’re also partners”. Several banks already offer loans and savings through M-Pesa, and insurers increasingly sell cover through mobile money.

For savers, the change could put more regulated products within a few taps. Money market funds have become a popular parking place for cash this year; Business Radar’s latest Kenya Money Pulse found average fund yields at 10.38% as demand for 91-day Treasury bills surged.

Ethiopia and the ownership fight

Ndegwa, who has led Safaricom for six years, named the Ethiopia expansion as one of his defining decisions. M-Pesa’s 90-day active customers in Ethiopia rose 119.4% to 5.2 million, although the business there is still loss-making.

The strategy comes while control of Safaricom remains before the courts. Vodacom raised its effective holding from about 35% to 55% on June 30 after buying a further 20% stake, but on September 15 the High Court voided the government’s sale of a 15% stake, ruling that it handed Vodacom control. Vodacom remains the registered holder while the Court of Appeal fast-tracks the main appeal. The government has told the appeal court that the KSh204.3bn it received is not refundable.

Shareholders approved a total dividend of KSh2.00 a share for the year, a payout of KSh80.1bn, up 66.7% on the previous year.