Safaricom Ethiopia has put M-pesa on trial launch

Safaricom Ethiopia is conducting the necessary tests in its facility before the official launch of the mobile money service (M-PESA), the company was officially licensed a month ago.

 

The official of the institution stated that Safaricom Ethiopia is testing M-pesa’s mobile money service on a trial basis and it is expected that following the indoor trial service in its institution the service will officially be launched and reach its customers soon. Employees of the M-PESA department at Safaricom Ethiopia are known to be using various per-production services using M-pesa.

It is to be remembered that Safaricom Ethiopia has passed eight months since it started providing services in Ethiopia, and the mobile money transfer service (M-PESA) received its license in early May from the National Bank. When a subsidiary of Safaricom Ethiopia Mpesa Mobile Financial Services was established, Safaricom had to pay 150 million dollars from the government to grant the license.

 

M-PESA progressing according to the planned timeline

 

As Mr. Peter Ndegwa, CEO of Safaricom Kenya, presented the previous month during their institution’s annual performance report on 3 May 2015 to the stakeholders, announcing the company “Mobile Money” license grant from the National Bank of Ethiopia, the CEO stated Safaricom Ethiopia will start providing the service within the few weeks which seems to be implementing accordingly to the plan.

The telecom company accepted the Ethiopian government’s tender for telecom companies in May 2013 and won, Safaricom Ethiopia paid 850 million dollars for the license of the general telecom service, and another 150 million dollars for the mobile money transfer services which was required as additional license fee by the government of Ethiopia.

Mpesa Mobile Financial Services Limited, a subsidiary of Safaricom Ethiopia, will be the second telecom service provider to offer mobile money transfers when it starts operations.

It should not be forgotten that Safaricom Ethiopia has previously announced that it has generated more than three million customers in the first seven months of its service, and plans to increase the number of customers in Ethiopia to ten million by 2024. At the same time, the telecom company announced that it has earned 562.4 million Kenyan shillings or more than four million dollars in Ethiopia.

Governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia, Mamo Mehretu, according to their previous time speech made remembering that the Bank has recalled other non-bank telecommunications companies like fintech and payment agents to participate in the payment service sector,

Meanwhile, Safaricom Ethiopia happens to be the first of all private payment agents and telecom service providers in the country.

Besides Safaricom’s strength and service stretch in Ethiopia, the company announced that the company is replacing the current CEO of Safaricom in Ethiopia Mr. Anwar Sasusa even if the company didn’t give any brief explanation for the reason for the replacement, the CEO’s name has been mentioned many times related to conflict of national interest and other liability issues. regardless of the executive’s known developed extensive international telecom experience in various service sectors and successful leadership experience Safaricom made it clear that Mr. Anwar is no longer CEO of Safaricom Ethiopia Brunch.