Payment methods in Kenya

Pesapal is an East African payment gateway that aggregates multiple payment methods — including M-Pesa, Airtel Money, Visa, and Mastercard — into a single checkout for online merchants. It is widely used by Kenyan and East African e-commerce businesses to accept diverse payment types from a single integration.

UnionPay cards are accepted in Kenya through international merchant acquirers, enabling Chinese tourists and diaspora to make purchases. Kenya is listed as a UnionPay SecurePay consumer country by PPRO, reflecting the card's growing acceptance across East African e-commerce merchants.

Airtel Money is Kenya's second-largest mobile money provider, holding approximately 6.6% market share as of 2024 (up from 2.8%). It operates similarly to M-Pesa and enables money transfers, bill payments, and merchant payments via USSD and the Airtel Money app.

Visa and Mastercard debit cards are the primary card payment instruments in Kenya, issued by major banks including KCB, Equity Bank, and Co-operative Bank. Credit card penetration remains very low (~5%), so most card transactions use debit instruments funded directly from current accounts.

Flutterwave and Paystack are pan-African payment infrastructure providers that enable Kenyan merchants to accept M-Pesa, cards, and bank transfers through developer-friendly APIs. Both platforms are used heavily by startups and growing e-commerce businesses across Kenya and the wider African continent.

M-Pesa is Kenya's transformative mobile money service, launched by Safaricom in 2007. It enables users to send money, pay bills, buy goods, and access financial services via a basic mobile phone — no smartphone or bank account required. With over 30 million active users and 93% market share in Kenyan mobile money, M-Pesa is the default payment method for a large portion of the population and is deeply integrated into e-commerce via the Daraja API and third-party gateways like Flutterwave and Pesapal.