Safaricom, Kenya's largest telecommunications company and the operator of M-PESA, the country's dominant mobile money service, is bringing tap-to-pay to physical shops through a partnership with Pesapal, a Kenyan payments company that supplies point-of-sale (POS) terminals to merchants.

Customers with near field communication (NFC)-enabled Android or iPhone devices can now tap their phones on compatible Pesapal terminals to pay a merchant through M-PESA, rather than manually entering the merchant's Till Number, the code used to receive M-PESA payments. Customers whose phones lack NFC can scan a quick response (QR) code instead.

The arrangement allows Safaricom to put M-PESA on thousands of existing checkout terminals without building its own POS network. It adds M-PESA tap and QR payments to terminals Pesapal's merchants already use, changing how customers pay while leaving the underlying Till Number system intact.

The rollout begins with 30,000 Pesapal terminals in Kenya, concentrated in restaurants, hotels, and selected supermarkets, according to Agosta Liko, founder of Pesapal. Consumers pay no extra charge, just as they would when paying through an M-PESA Till Number.

Liko told TechCabal on Thursday that Pesapal spent six months testing the service and is now making it available to all merchants with compatible terminals.

"Thousands of businesses trust our platform, and by teaming up with Safaricom, we are delivering the faster, error-free transactions their customers expect. Today, we activate the future of payments," he said.

How It Works

The merchant's existing M-PESA Till Number remains the account that receives the money, while Pesapal provides the terminal and Safaricom handles the M-PESA transaction.

A cashier first enters the amount on the Pesapal terminal. A customer with an NFC-enabled phone then taps it against the machine, which opens Safaricom's My OneApp with the merchant's Buy Goods number (the Till Number) and the payment amount already populated. The customer checks the details and authorises the transaction with an M-PESA PIN or biometrics.

Customers whose phones do not support NFC can scan a QR code displayed on the same terminal. Safaricom's scan-to-pay function also works with QR codes shown by other merchants, so customers do not need a Pesapal terminal to make a QR payment.

Safaricom says its scan-to-pay service is already available at more than 60,000 merchant outlets and is targeting 500,000 within the next year, more than eight times its current footprint.

It Is All About Speed

Safaricom is also using My OneApp to let customers complete payments without manually entering a Till Number. The app can scan printed or handwritten receipts and, where the information is available, identify the merchant's Till or PayBill number and the payment amount. According to Safaricom, My OneApp has more than 7 million downloads.

The products serve the same broader purpose: reducing the information customers must type before completing an M-PESA payment. A traditional merchant payment can require a customer to find a Till Number, enter it, enter an amount, wait for a prompt, and then enter a PIN. The new system moves much of that process to the merchant's terminal and the customer's phone.

The partnership also gives Pesapal's POS machines a larger role in Kenya's payments market. POS terminals have traditionally been associated with card payments, while M-PESA transactions have generally started on the customer's phone. Putting the two together makes the terminal part of the M-PESA transaction without changing the underlying merchant account.

Kenya had over 57,000 POS terminals in August 2026, up from 54,454 at the end of 2025, according to the latest Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) data provided by the companies. Pesapal says about 30,000 of those machines run on its platform. The figures are not directly comparable, but they indicate the scale of Pesapal's network.

"Most of Pesapal's terminals are deployed at restaurants, hotels and selected supermarkets," Liko said.

With the move, Safaricom can reach existing physical checkout points without building and distributing its own POS network, while Pesapal can offer its merchants another way to accept M-PESA payments through hardware already at the counter.

The service is available to all Pesapal merchants with compatible terminals and comes with no additional merchant fee. Tap-to-pay is exclusive to Pesapal for now, giving the company an early position as Safaricom expands the service.

"For now, Pesapal is the partner on board, but there are ongoing discussions with other POS providers to integrate," a Safaricom representative said.

The QR side of the rollout has also gone through a regulatory process. Kenya introduced the Kenya Quick Response Code Standard in 2023 to guide banks and payment service providers on issuing QR codes for digital payments; the standard is published by the Central Bank of Kenya. Liko said Pesapal worked with the CBK before launching the new QR functionality.

Safaricom and Pesapal have not disclosed how many M-PESA transactions currently happen through QR codes or how many merchant payments still require customers to enter Till Numbers manually. The companies have also not said how many of Pesapal's remaining terminals they expect to upgrade for NFC payments. Safaricom's target of 500,000 scan-to-pay outlets within a year signals its distribution ambition, but the company has not provided an adoption target for customers or a transaction target for the service.

Not an M-PESA 1Tap Moment

Safaricom has tried to make M-PESA contactless before. In 2017, it launched M-PESA 1Tap, which allowed customers to pay by tapping NFC-enabled cards, wristbands, and stickers on merchant terminals. The company expanded the service beyond its initial trial areas but discontinued it that same year after the product failed to gain enough adoption.

The new system removes one of the barriers that held 1Tap back. Customers no longer need a separate Safaricom card, wristband, or sticker because their smartphone becomes the payment device. Customers without NFC also have a QR option, while My OneApp provides the software layer for completing the transaction.

That history makes adoption the central question for the new partnership. A payment method can be faster on paper and still fail to become a habit if customers do not know it exists, merchants do not make it visible, or the checkout experience is inconsistent.

The companies are also relying on behaviour that smartphone users already know. Tapping a phone on a terminal is familiar from contactless card payments, while scanning a QR code is already common across digital payments. Safaricom is applying those behaviours to M-PESA while leaving the underlying Till Number system intact.

James Maitai, Safaricom's group chief technology officer, said the company wants M-PESA to move beyond simply processing payments.

"Our partnership with Pesapal is an important part of that journey, bringing together our respective capabilities to shape the next generation of everyday payments," Maitai said.