Safaricom has appointed Sitoyo Lopokoiyit as the M-Pesa Africa head, days after it acquired the platform jointly with Vodacom Group from Vodafone.
Lopokoiyit was plucked from his position as Safaricom’s Chief Officer for Financial Services to head the new venture.
Safaricom and Vodacom completed the acquisition of the M-Pesa brand from Vodafone Group Plc in April for Ksh1.4 billion.
Vodacom and Vodafone own a combined 40 per cent stake in the Nairobi Securities Exchange-listed firm which pioneered the M-Pesa service in the local market.
Read: Safaricom and Vodacom Now Fully Acquires M-PESA from Vodafone
The M-Pesa Africa Joint Venture will be steered by a team of five leaders, consisting of the commercial director, finance director, technology director, head of compliance and risk and the chief of financial services, Safaricom.
The transaction, first announced in 2019, gives both Vodacom and Safaricom full control of the M-Pesa brand, product development and support services as well as the opportunity to expand M-Pesa into new African markets.
M-Pesa is the largest payments platform on the African continent. It has 40 million users and processes over a billion transactions every month. M-Pesa is operational in Kenya, Tanzania, Lesotho, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mozambique and Egypt.
M-Pesa could also be planning to unveil in Europe, after M-Pesa announced recruitment of a delivery manager in London.
The role with be responsible for delivery of new Mobile Money Products, Services and Engineering projects.
Read: Safaricom In the Final Stages of Testing Investment Product, Mali
In the job vacancy announced eleven days ago, the successful candidate will be in charge of creation and maintenance of a trusted delivery partnership and guidance of mobile positioning system (MPS) markets in their delivery of local MPS supported services.
They will also man vendor management for assigned projects and programmes and mentoring of in-Market resources to ensure synergies remain strong between MPS, markets and partners.
Initial Projects will focus on financial services including merchant and consumer loan products and overdrafts.
Future projects may support the full range of M-Pesa services, the telco said.
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