Vodacom and Safaricom will jointly acquire the intellectual property rights of the M-Pesa platform from Vodafone, Reuters reported, citing Safaricom’s chief executive officer, Bob Collymore.<\/p>\n
The deal, worth $13.4 million, would enable Vodacom and Safaricom to make ‘significant savings’ in royalties paid to the British operator , while expand the service to new markets in Africa, Collymore said.<\/p>\n
“We are taking ownership of M-Pesa, the brand and the intellectual property. Joint ownership between us and Vodacom and we then use that as a platform into running into other markets across the continent,” Collymore told Reuters in an interview.<\/p>\n
Safaricom pays 2% of its annual M-Pesa revenue to Vodafone, while Vodacom pays 5% in an intellectual property fee to Vodafone from its M-Pesa business.<\/p>\n
Vodacom acquired a 35% stake in Kenya\u2019s leading integrated communications company for R35 billion in 2017. Vodafone holds a 5% stake in Safaricom.<\/p>\n
“More important than the significant savings is about us determining the future, the roadmap of M-Pesa because at the moment the roadmap is determined by Vodafone,” Collymore said.<\/p>\n
In presenting results for the year ended March 2019 earlier in the month, Vodacom Group CEO, Shameel Joosub said that Vodacom was in the process of concluding the acquisition of the M-Pesa brand and platform related assets from Vodafone through a joint agreement with Safaricom.<\/p>\n
“We expect this will further accelerate our mobile money growth plans in Africa. The commercialisation of our recently-launched payment gateway and digital wallet will assist in sustaining Financial Services growth in South Africa,” he said.<\/p>\n
Joosub noted that the group’s investment in Safaricom contributed R2.8 billion to Vodacom Group’s operating profit, with Safaricom reporting a 7.0% increase in service revenue and a 13.1% improvement in EBIT, underpinned by strong customer growth and M-Pesa revenues.<\/p>\n
“We added 1.7 million customers during the period up 14.8% to 13.5 million. We now process $2.8 billion in transactions a month across our operations,” he said at the time.<\/p>\n