From right; Chief Officer, Financial Services Safaricom Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, explains to H.E President Uhuru Kenyatta, how Dot Braille watch works. The Braille watch is an innovation that is equivalent to a smart gear that displays SMS notifications in braille for visually impaired customers. The president visited Safaricom stand during the inaugural Afro-Asia Fintech Festival held at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies.

Safaricom has announced plans to expand its e-commerce proposition Masoko to other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa by year 2020.

This is on the backdrop of an expected growth of Smartphones in the region estimated to hit over 525 million users as at the end of next year.

“We see endless possibilities for business beyond borders. We are currently reviewing our e-commerce proposition Masoko to ensure that we are positioned ready to take off. Through the mobile phone, and with its penetration in Kenya at 100 per cent, most families have access to at least one mobile phone, making it possible to use these devices as powerful tools for social and economic development,” Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, Chief Financial Services Officer, Safaricom, said.

The announcement follows a recent partnership in March this year, where Safaricom signed a deal with Chinese run online store under Alibaba Group Aliexpress.com to expand its e-commerce reach in the country by allowing them to use M-PESA as a payment option.

The ambition for the Masoko platform is to bring the market to small businesses wherever they are in Kenya, and to give them access to opportunities presented by the rapid growth of e-commerce across the globe.

“As a telco, we are purposed to transform lives by investing in technology and knowledge that will widen the reach of the possibilities they have witnessed in the last two decades to reach right across Africa, using that pocket- sized gadget,” said Lopokoiyit.

In the spirit of innovation, Safaricom has so far opened its platform to over 16,000 Fintech developers to develop relevant products and services to customers.

Today, APIs are publicly available and SMEs can test and connect to our platform directly. There is a sandbox where they can be able to try out they services after which they can apply to plug in to the system formally. Depending on the SME and their technical skills, they can connect within 10 minutes to the M-PESA platform.

Read: Bidco Africa CEO Thiagarajan “TRM” Ramamurthy retires

The two day inaugural Afri-Asia Fintech Festival brings together delegates comprising regulators, innovators, financiers and academicians from across Asia and the African content with an aim of getting Fintech based sustainable solutions that transform lives.

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