A sharp rise in mobile-based business collections among small-scale traders has placed Safaricom’s Pochi La Biashara product among the fastest-growing tools within Kenya’s informal payments ecosystem, as more users separate personal and business transactions in response to expanding side-hustle activity across the economy.
Safaricom, Kenya’s dominant telecom operator and mobile money provider, reports that the service has accumulated 2.2 million users, reflecting steady adoption since its launch in 2021 as micro-entrepreneurs increasingly formalise revenue flows without moving into fully registered merchant structures.
The product’s growth trajectory shows acceleration over the past two financial years, rising from 600,000 users in 2024 to 1.1 million in 2025 before doubling to 2.2 million in the 2025/2026 financial year, alongside revenue growth from Ksh 800 million to Ksh 2.2 billion and then to Ksh 4 billion over the same period.
The uptake places the service within Safaricom’s expanding merchant ecosystem at a time when mobile money usage is shifting beyond peer-to-peer transfers toward structured small business transactions driven by informal trade and gig-based income streams.
“We are now starting to see that the contribution of Pochi la Biashara to the merchant in relation to total revenue and transaction value is becoming material,” said Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom Group Chief Executive Officer, noting its rising role within the company’s merchant portfolio.
Introduced in 2021, Pochi la Biashara is positioned for micro and informal traders who require separation between personal and business funds without the administrative requirements tied to Paybill or Till Number registrations, allowing transactions to be received directly into a designated business wallet linked to a mobile number.
The product also removes payment reversibility once funds are received, a design feature that has influenced adoption among traders operating in high-frequency, low-value transaction environments where cash flow certainty is prioritised over formal dispute mechanisms.
Safaricom frames the service as a simplified entry point into digital commerce for small enterprises, with internal positioning describing it as a “small pocket within a larger wallet,” a reference to its function as a segmented storage layer within the M-PESA ecosystem.
Market usage patterns suggest adoption is strongest among women-led informal enterprises and micro-retail operators in urban and peri-urban markets, where separation of household and business income has historically been a challenge due to cash-based operations.
The growth of Pochi La Biashara reflects broader structural shifts in Kenya’s labour market, where secondary income streams and informal enterprises continue to expand in response to cost-of-living pressures and limited formal employment absorption.
It also signals the deepening monetisation of Safaricom’s merchant ecosystem, as the company increasingly derives revenue from business-facing financial services rather than solely consumer peer-to-peer transactions.
While the product remains smaller in scale compared to Paybill and Till Number services, its rapid expansion suggests increasing penetration into micro-merchant segments that previously relied on direct M-PESA transfers or cash transactions, positioning it as a transitional tool between informal trade and structured digital commerce.
