Nairobi, June 28 -- The proliferation of micro traders such as food vendors, kiosk owners, boda boda operators and second-hand clothes sellers has pushed adoption of M-Pesa's Pochi la Biashara wallets ahead of business tills.

The product, which allows traders to receive and separate business funds from personal cash, has surpassed business tills under Lipa na M-Pesa by addressing key merchant pain points such as payment reversals.

Disclosures by Safaricom Plc, the owner and operator of the M-Pesa mobile money platform, show the number of merchants using Pochi has doubled that of business tills.

The number of merchants using Pochi reached 2.1 million in the financial year ended March 2026, up from 1.1 million a year earlier.

In contras...