Kenya’s Safaricom will start a joint venture with Vodacom to acquire the intellectual property rights to the popular M-Pesa mobile financial services platform from Britain’s Vodafone, Safaricom’s CEO said on Thursday.
The $13.4 million deal will let both purchasers make significant savings in royalties paid to Vodafone and expand the service to new African markets, said Bob Collymore, Safaricom’s CEO.
