Safaricom Halves Mpesa Merchant Fees in CBK Led Move

Safaricom Just Answered the Banks. Here's What M-Pesa's New Tariffs Mean for Your Business.

Just days after nineteen lenders dropped PesaLink fees to a flat Sh20, Safaricom has cut M-Pesa business transaction fees by up to 50 percent.

Safaricom says the revised pricing aligns with Central Bank principles on affordability and market fairness. But we've got to talk about how it;s barely a week after nineteen banks and microfinance lenders flattened their own transfer fees, and it makes M-Pesa noticeably more attractive to merchants right as pricing competition in Kenya's payments market picks up.

Moving money out of a business till at the end of the day has always been an annoying tax on small merchants. If you clear Sh10,000 from your till to your mobile wallet, you used to hand Safaricom Sh90. Under the new rates starting August 7, that fee drops to Sh45. A merchant sweeping Sh10,000 out of the till once a day would save roughly Sh990 over a 22-day month under the new pricing, just on that one habit.

Transaction Range	Old Till to Wallet	New Till to Wallet	Old Till to PayBill	New Till to PayBill
Sh101 to Sh500	Sh7	Sh4	Sh5	Sh3
Sh501 to Sh1,000	Sh13	Sh7	Sh10	Sh5
Sh1,501 to Sh2,500	Sh33	Sh17	Sh20	Sh10
Sh2,501 to Sh5,000	Sh57	Sh29	Sh34	Sh17
Sh7,501 to Sh10,000	Sh90	Sh45	Sh48	Sh24

While banks are trying to make moving money between bank accounts cheaper, Safaricom is making it cheaper to collect and settle money without ever leaving M-Pesa.

Even small-scale vendors on Pochi la Biashara get a temporary reprieve. Between August 1st and October 31st, 2026, receiving up to Sh200 into a Pochi account carries zero transaction fees. For Lipa na M-PESA Buy Goods tills, the threshold for zero-fee customer transactions bumps up from Sh200 to Sh500, with charges capped at Sh200 for larger transactions.

With all the economic pressure going on right now, I'm just happy to see Kenya's payments market competing on price again.