Business Quest Team 
Epimack Mbeteni,M-Pesa Director-Vodacom
- Vodacom Tanzania and M-Pesa Launch Africa’s First Mobile Tap-to-Pay, Powered by Paymentology and Visa;
In a milestone for digital payments in Africa, Vodacom Tanzania Plc and M-Pesa Africa, powered by Paymentology and Visa, have launched the continent’s first mobile-money Tap-to-Pay feature.
Available on the M-Pesa SuperApp, the new capability allows users to make contactless payments using their Android mobile phones at any Visa-enabled point-of-sale terminal, both locally and internationally.
The rollout marks a major step forward for mobile payments in Tanzania, where digital financial services are rapidly becoming central to everyday commerce.
As of December 2025, Tanzania’s mobile money ecosystem had 76.5 million accounts, up 21% from 63.2 million in 2024, highlighting the growing adoption of digital financial services across the country.
According to Epimack Mbeteni,M-Pesa Director at Vodacom, from what began as a simple idea, giving M-Pesa customers the freedom to tap and pay anywhere using just their phones, came the current live reality.
“This launch is the result of deep collaboration across Vodacom, M-Pesa Africa, Visa, and Paymentology, and reflects our shared commitment to making payments simpler, safer, and more accessible for millions of people,” said Mbeteni.
Financial Inclusion Meets Innovation: Transforming Everyday Transactions
The Tap-to-Pay feature integrates mobile money, virtual cards, and global card acceptance into a seamless experience.
Supported by Paymentology’s cloud-first issuing and processing infrastructure, it extends the functionality of the M-Pesa Visa Virtual Card, enabling secure, tokenized, tap-and-go payments without a physical card.
Meagan Rabe, Vice President of Merchant Services, Acquiring and Fintech for Sub-Saharan Africa at Visa pointed out that the advancement of mobile-money Tap-to-Pay is as a result of effective collaboration within the payments ecosystem.
“Visa offers a robust global network and contactless infrastructure, Paymentology facilitates secure tokenisation at the issuer level, and Vodacom provides extensive reach through its trusted M-Pesa platform, relied upon by millions.
Collectively, this partnership is establishing Tap-to-Pay as a widely adopted payment solution for daily transactions,” added Rabe.
This launch builds on the successful collaboration between Paymentology and M-Pesa in Kenya, extending the partnership into Tanzania.
With over 20 years of experience supporting payment innovation across African markets, Paymentology brings the technical backbone that allows millions of users to transact securely, efficiently, and globally.
Anna Porra, Chief Revenue Officer, Paymentology, emphasized that at Paymentology, they have a conviction on innovations like Tap-to-Pay accelerating financial inclusion by making everyday transactions simpler and safer for everyone.
“This launch marks an important step forward for the country’s digital economy.We’re proud to support Vodacom and M-Pesa, alongside Visa, with the issuer-processing capabilities that enable fast, secure, next-generation payments for millions of people,” added Anna.
The Tap-to-Pay feature opens new possibilities for merchants and entrepreneurs across Tanzania, allowing them to meet rising consumer demand for contactless, mobile-based payments.
For users, it provides greater freedom to pay securely wherever Visa is accepted, whether locally or abroad, all through a familiar mobile-money interface.
With this launch, Africa takes another step toward a digital-first economy, where innovation, financial inclusion, and convenience converge to empower both consumers and businesses.
