👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – M-PESA’s big 40

Since 2018, when Kenya passed the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act to address online fraud and digital harassment, it has had a clause that made publishing “false information” online a criminal offence. If a user shares inaccurate or misleading information on the internet, it could land them in trouble with the law.

That part of the law has just disappeared: Kenya’s Court of Appeal has struck down criminal penalties for publishing such information online, ruling that the provisions were too vague and could easily infringe on constitutional protections for freedom of expression.

Why “false information” is in quotes: The problem with that provision was how the law tried to deal with it. The judges said the wording of the offences was so broad that it could capture almost anything, including satire, opinion, honest mistakes, or journalism that later turns out to be inaccurate, and a law that punishes falsehood without clearly defining it can easily become a tool to intimidate critics or silence voices.

Don’t get too excited, the whole cybercrime law isn’t gone: The court only struck down the sections criminalising false publications and false information, but kept most of the cybercrime law intact. Authorities can still obtain court warrants to search digital devices and require telecom or internet providers to release subscriber information during investigations. Offences like online child exploitation and cybersquatting remain criminal.

For the first time in its history, 40 million Kenyans now use M-PESA, the Safaricom-owned mobile money platform. The platform now serves roughly three out of every four Kenyan adults, and it drives more than 40% of Safaricom’s service revenue, up from about 43% in 2025 and still climbing. At this point, “mobile money” slightly understates what it is. 

M‑PESA has morphed into a full stack of payments, credit, and investment rails—Lipa na M‑PESA for merchants, Fuliza overdrafts, KCB M‑PESA loans, Ziidi money market funds—that everyone from dukas (shop owners) to banks and credit unions (SACCOs) runs on daily.

M‑PESA added about 30 million users between 2012 and 2026, but in the last few years, it has focused on deepening usage rather than onboarding new people. Chargeable transactions per active customer keep rising, with more than 21.9 billion transactions worth KES 20.2 trillion ($156.4 billion) processed in six months to September 2025.

The risk is concentration. Even with Airtel Money slowly nibbling M‑PESA’s share, Safaricom still sits on close to 90% of the mobile money market. That gives regulators an ongoing headache: how do you push for more competition without destabilising the one infrastructure layer almost every Kenyan touches in a given week?

The next phase of M‑PESA’s story will not be about adding millions more Kenyans; it will be about what rides on top of it. Ziidi, Global Pay, super‑app “mini‑stores,” cross‑border corridors and embedded credit already show Safaricom retooling M‑PESA from a payments rail into a fintech operating system. 

For local banks and fintechs, that is the uncomfortable truth behind the 40‑million headline: the main question is no longer whether you integrate with M‑PESA, but how much of your own margin and customer relationship you are willing to hand over when you do.

Starting April 1, 2026, Telkom customers in South Africa will begin seeing slightly higher bills. The telecom operator is increasing tariffs across several services, including postpaid mobile plans, LTE data packages, and fixed voice and broadband services.

What’s going up? Most mobile voice and LTE plans will increase by about 6.5% on average, while certain LTE wireless bundles will see smaller bumps of around 4.5% and, ranging between 2.6% and 7.2%. Fibre tariffs for both consumer and small and medium business customers will increase by an average of 6%. 

Not everything is going up, though. Telkom’s uncapped LTE and 5G internet plans will remain unchanged, and data allocations, SMS bundles, and voice minutes included in plans are staying the same.

Telkom’s almost-annual price adjustments: Telkom has been adjusting tariffs over the past few years, turning price revisions into something that looks like an annual ritual. In June 2025, the operator raised prices on most of its mobile voice and data subscription plans by roughly 5% on average. A few months earlier, in April, it adjusted prices across fixed broadband and voice services, with some tariffs rising by up to 12%. June 2024 also saw tariff adjustments across mobile and fibre offerings.

Why the operator says prices must rise: Telkom says the increases are tied to a familiar trio: inflation, rising operating costs, and continued network investment. However, customers who disagree with the new pricing can cancel their contracts without penalty. The catch is that any outstanding device payments still need to be settled.

What this could mean for customers: As tariffs move up across services, customers may start switching packages or even exploring competing networks. South Africa’s telecom market has major operators like MTN, Vodacom, and Cell C constantly pushing promotions and bundled data offers to attract subscribers. Even small price differences can influence where customers move their spending to.