Vodacom has launched Africa’s first mobile-money tap-to-pay feature through a partnership with fintech operator Paymentology and its M-Pesa mobile money platform.
The move highlights the group’s ongoing push to make its super app a more compelling offering that can help it gain more users while fighting off myriad competitors.
On Tuesday, Paymentology said its technology was behind the new feature, now available through Vodacom Tanzania. The new capability allows M-Pesa customers to make contactless payments using their Android mobile phones at any Visa-enabled point-of-sale terminal locally and internationally.
Until now, tap-to-pay using mobile devices was mainly done through integrations with banking apps and payment platforms from larger tech players such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay.
The company expects the offering will help shift how “millions of users pay, travel and do business”.
Originating in SA, Paymentology was formerly known as Tutuka. It is a cloud-based digital payments company that works with banks, fintech companies and telecom operators to issue and process physical and virtual cards, including debit, prepaid, credit, buy-now-pay-later, revolving and more.
SA businesses it works with include Standard Bank, Access Bank, Adumo, Santam, Massmart, Pick n Pay, Liberty Group, Achievement Awards, Altech, Mukuru, Mama Money and Spar.
In 2021 Tutuka and a other businesses were acquired by fintech group Salt Pay to form what is now Paymentology. Salt Pay, now Teya, is owned by private equity players together with the founders of the Brazilian payments business Stone.
According to Paymentology, tap-to-pay opens new opportunities for merchants and entrepreneurs in Tanzania to serve customers who increasingly expect contactless, mobile-based payments, “while giving consumers greater freedom to pay securely wherever Visa is accepted, at home or abroad, through a familiar mobile-money interface”.
Vodacom is hoping the move will strengthen its position in Tanzania’s expanding mobile money market.
The number of mobile money accounts reached 76.5-million as of December, a rise of about 21% from 2024, highlighting how rapidly digital financial services are becoming embedded in everyday commerce.
“What began as a simple idea, giving M-Pesa customers the freedom to tap and pay anywhere using jtheir phones, is now a live reality,” said Vodacom Tanzania M-Pesa director Epimack Mbeteni.
“This launch is the result of deep collaboration across Vodacom, M-Pesa Africa, Visa and Paymentology, and reflects our shared commitment to making payments simpler, safer and more accessible for millions of people.”
Vodacom, which is in the process of increasing its stake in Kenya’s Safaricom to obtain a controlling interest, has signed several deals as part of a broader effort to get ahead in Africa’s competitive mobile money market. Until this deal, Vodacom and Safaricom have been running M-Pesa as a 50/50 joint venture.
In January, M-Pesa demonstrated its support for the nascent stablecoin technology by forging a partnership with the ADI Foundation. Stablecoin technologies have become attractive as a means of sending and receiving money across borders that is quicker and less expensive than traditional banking services.
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