Safaricom Release Mpesa Public API For Developers

Safaricom has opened up M-Pesa by issuing a public API, allowing local and international developers to create applications that use the platform as the main payment option. This will allow creation of mobile apps for Android, iOS and other platforms possible.

Developers can now innovate products that assist in developing financial products and grow their own businesses linking them to M-Pesa.

The move increases the money transfer service’s position in the market as it creates new revenue streams for M-Pesa at a time when competition is intensifying and threatening M-Pesa’s future market leadership.

Betty Mwangi, Safaricom’s director of financial services, said one of the advantages of bringing M-Pesa home is the fact that it is easier to integrate with other financial platforms to offer more or improved services to customers.

Ms Mwangi said, “We do, however, accept that innovation cannot come from us alone – it takes partnerships to come up with some of the best possible solutions that will help transform lives.”

The launching of M-Pesa’s Application Programming Interface (API) is made possible by the new platform brought home from Germany in April.

INNOVATIVE PAYMENT SERVICES

The developers are expected to come up with innovative services for business to consumer, consumer to business, and business to business channels that can run off the new M-Pesa platform.

The move now complements other recent initiatives aimed at boosting M-Pesa transactions and entrenching a “cash-lite” economy through e-commerce platform Lipa na M-Pesa.