M-Pesa operations in Ethiopia began on Wednesday, three months after it was approved by the National Bank of Ethiopia to provide mobile money services in the country.

This follows a three-month pilot and testing program, technical readiness completion, signing partnerships with banks, and recruitment, training, and onboarding of M-Pesa agents.

Safaricom Ethiopia says through M-Pesa, users can send and receive money in the country and abroad, pay merchants, buy airtime, and transfer money to bank accounts from their mobile wallets, and vice versa.

 Safaricom Ethiopia interim CEO Stanley Njoroge expressed the telco’s excitement to go live with M-Pesa in Ethiopia and provide Mobile Financial Services to its customers.

“M-Pesa is known to be a game-changer for financial inclusion and provides services to more than 51 million customers across seven countries in Africa offering a safe and secure platform for transactions.”

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The M-Pesa launch in the Horn of Africa country got a nod in June this year after paying Kes 20.5 billion to get a mobile financial services license from the Ethiopian government.

Ethiopia, which has over 100 million people, offers the firm an opportunity to grow revenue away from its Kenyan subsidiary.

“M-PESA will play its part in fast tracking Digital Inclusion and promote innovation outlined in the Digital payments Strategy 2025,” Njoroge said.