For nearly two decades, M‑PESA has done one thing better than almost any financial service on the continent. It put digital payments into the hands of ordinary Kenyans – market traders, boda boda riders, smallholder farmers, and salaried workers alike.
Now, Safaricom is using that same infrastructure to solve a different problem: access to wealth creation.
On 10 February 2026, Safaricom, in partnership with the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and Kestrel Capital, launched Ziidi Trader, a new platform on the M‑PESA app that allows users to buy and sell shares in listed companies directly from their mobile money wallets.
The move is not incremental. It is structural.
The barrier Ziidi Trader dismantles
Kenya’s stock market has long been the preserve of a relatively small, affluent, and urban segment of the population. The reasons are familiar across African markets: high brokerage fees, minimum investment thresholds, the administrative hurdle of opening a Central Depository System (CDS) account, and a general perception that equities are for the wealthy.
Ziidi Trader removes several of those barriers in one motion.
Investors under Ziidi Trader do not need individual CDS accounts. Instead, M‑PESA pools funds from multiple investors into a single account managed by Kestrel Capital. This single change facilitates faster trade execution and significantly reduces trading costs for the end user.
The entry point is also radically lower. Customers can start investing from as little as one share. The entire journey – buying, selling, portfolio monitoring, and market insights – happens seamlessly within the M‑PESA app, under the oversight of the Capital Markets Authority.
Scale meets capital markets
The numbers give the proposition its weight. M‑PESA has over 30 million active users in Kenya. The NSE currently has approximately 2 million direct CDS account holders. The theoretical addressable market for equity investing has just expanded by an order of magnitude.
Speaking during the launch at the NSE, President William Ruto hailed the initiative as transformative, stating that it will democratise capital markets, allowing those at the bottom of the economic pyramid to grow wealth.
“This platform represents a decisive turning point in how citizens engage with the stock exchange. It opens the doors of market participation wider than ever before, dismantling long‑standing barriers that have locked out many willing investors and bringing opportunity closer to all citizens,” President Ruto said.
Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa framed the launch within the company’s broader strategic arc: “For 18 years, M‑PESA has transformed how Kenyans live, work and do business. Today, we are extending that impact to how our customers build and grow their wealth.”
The evolution of Ziidi
Ziidi Trader is not Safaricom’s first step into investment services. It is the third.
The journey began with Ziidi Money Market Fund, which encouraged disciplined saving and investment. That was followed by Ziidi Shariah, offering Shariah‑compliant options for customers seeking faith‑based products. Ziidi Trader now adds direct equity and corporate bond trading to the same mobile interface.
The logic is clear. Safaricom is building a contiguous ladder of financial capability: payments → savings → fixed income → equities. Each rung pulls a customer deeper into the formal financial system while keeping them inside the M‑PESA ecosystem.
NSE CEO Frank Mwiti added: “By making NSE trading available through M‑PESA, we are making it easier for more people, both locally and abroad, to invest and play an active role in Kenya’s economic growth.”
A blueprint for other markets
The significance of Ziidi Trader extends beyond Kenya. Across Africa, mobile money operators and telecoms have long struggled to move customers from payments and airtime to long‑term investment products. The barriers are rarely technical. They are structural: CDS requirements, brokerage relationships, regulatory approval, and customer education.
Safaricom has now demonstrated a working template. A mobile money operator partners with the national securities exchange and a licensed broker. The operator pools retail flows into a single institutional account, eliminating individual CDS friction. The regulator provides oversight but not obstruction. The customer gets a simple, trusted interface.
That template is replicable. Any African country with a large mobile money user base, a functional stock exchange, and a willing telecom could adapt it.
What financial services leaders should watch
For banks, fintechs, and investment platforms across the continent, Ziidi Trader signals three important shifts.
First, telecoms are no longer just payments companies. Safaricom is now a direct competitor to traditional stockbrokers and investment apps, using its distribution scale as the primary advantage.
Second, the economics of retail investing are being rewritten. Pooled CDS accounts, fractional share dealing, and app‑only distribution compress cost structures that have remained unchanged for decades.
Third, regulatory partnership matters. Ziidi Trader operates under Capital Markets Authority oversight, with clear investor protection and transparency disclosures. The model works because the regulator engaged rather than resisted.
The road ahead
Ziidi Trader is now live on the M‑PESA app. The immediate test is not technical but behavioural: will millions of Kenyans who use M‑PESA for daily transactions also trust it for long‑term equity investments?
Safaricom is betting on a combination of habit, simplicity, and financial education. The platform includes clear disclosures and investor education features, signalling an understanding that access without literacy creates its own risks.
For forward‑thinking leaders across African financial services, Ziidi Trader is not just a product launch. It is a signal.
Mobile money has moved from payments to savings to now equities. The next question is what comes after.
SOURCES:
https://newsroom.safaricom.co.ke/innovation/ziidi-trader-a-new-way-to-sell-and-buy-shares/
https://dabafinance.com/en/news/kenya-safaricom-mpesa-ziidi-trader-nse