JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — South Africa’s Vodacom Group has dismissed calls to separate M-Pesa from Safaricom, saying the mobile money platform remains too intertwined with the telco’s core operations to function as an independent business.
Speaking during the group’s earnings call on Tuesday, November 11, Vodacom Chief Executive Officer Shameel Joosub said the company had no plans to list or spin off its financial services division, despite renewed pressure from Kenyan authorities to unbundle the Nairobi-based telecom giant.
“We’re not looking to separately list the financial service businesses; we do see it intricately linked to our value proposition that we’re providing to the customer,” Joosub said.
“In fact, we see it becoming even more closely linked, coupled with loyalty going forward.”
Joosub’s remarks come amid ongoing debate in Kenya over whether Safaricom — the country’s most valuable company — should be split into distinct entities for telecommunications, mobile money, and infrastructure, in line with competition and governance reforms being pushed by the National Treasury.
In August, Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said the government, which holds a 35pc stake in Safaricom, was exploring a restructuring that would create three separate arms — a telecom operator, an M-Pesa entity, and a tower infrastructure company.
Mbadi suggested the plan could also involve offloading part of the state’s shares to raise revenue and improve public participation in the capital markets.
“Preliminary assessments have shown huge potential benefit to the state,” Mbadi noted at the time, adding that any such restructuring would require Cabinet approval before implementation.
Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa has, however, maintained that there have been no formal discussions with the government over the proposed split.
Speaking to Bloomberg in September, Ndegwa said the company’s success has largely hinged on the synergy between M-Pesa and its telecom business.
“From a management and board perspective, the reason why Safaricom has been successful is because the two are joined,” Ndegwa said, adding that while investors often view M-Pesa as a separate business unit, it remains firmly part of the Safaricom Group structure.
Safaricom is jointly owned by the Kenyan government and Vodacom Group, with Vodafone Group retaining a 5pc indirect stake.
In April 2020, Safaricom and Vodacom jointly acquired the M-Pesa brand, product development, and support services from Vodafone, in a move aimed at accelerating the mobile money platform’s expansion across Africa.
M-Pesa remains Safaricom’s largest revenue driver, with the telco reporting a 14pc year-on-year increase in M-Pesa earnings to Sh 88.1 billion in its results for the six months ended September 30, 2025.
Total service revenue rose 9.3pc to Sh 194 billion, while group net income surged 52.1pc to Sh 42.8 billion, buoyed by strong performance in both Kenya and Ethiopia.
In Ethiopia, where Safaricom launched services in 2022, revenue jumped 136pc to Sh 6.2 billion, as operating losses narrowed by 20.1pc to Sh 15.5 billion.
For now, Vodacom’s firm stance suggests M-Pesa will remain under Safaricom’s umbrella, even as Kenya’s policymakers weigh broader reforms to promote transparency and competition in the country’s telecom and fintech sectors.
