M-Pesa Africa – the mobile money JV between Safaricom and Vodacom Group – says that it’s expanding its partnership with global payment infrastructure provider Thunes to enable users in Kenya and Tanzania to use their M-Pesa wallet to make payments when traveling to China.
According to a post on social media site X on Friday, M-Pesa Africa said that customers of Safaricom in Kenya and Vodacom Tanzania will be able to scan to pay at Chinese merchants using their M-Pesa Super App “in coming months” under the expanded partnership with Thunes.
M-Pesa Africa said that its customers traveling to China have struggled to make payments there, as most merchants in China only accept local cashless payments like AliPay and WeChat Pay.
The new Thunes deal is set to change that, the post said. “With this partnership, customers will not need to make Forex conversions as payments, will be made directly from their M-PESA account, providing unparalleled convenience whenever they travel to China.”
Safaricom has previously struck deals with AliPay and WeChat Pay to enable M-Pesa users to make remittance payments to China.
Singapore-based Thunes says its proprietary “Direct Global Network” payment infrastructure connects directly to over 7 billion mobile wallets and bank accounts worldwide, as well as 15 billion cards via more than 320 different payment methods, including M-Pesa, AliPay and WeChat Pay. Thunes also supports payments from GCash, Airtel, MTN, Orange, JazzCash and Easypaisa, among others.
