M-Pesa Eyes Fuel Payment Market Share in Ethiopia, Pumps into National Fuel Aggregator

Nearly two years after digital fuel payments became mandatory in Ethiopia, Safaricom’s M-Pesa mobile money service has been integrated into the country’s digital fuel payment system. A Total Energies fuel station on Airport Rd was the first outlet to utilize the service on Wednesday, with around 500 other stations ready to roll out in the coming months. 

Biniyam Alemayehu, Merchant Product Manager at MPESA, says the new functionalities will be integrated into the national fuel aggregator portal launched a few weeks back by the Ministry of Transport & Logistics, with EagleLion Systems providing the technology. Oromia International Bank, which debuted its ‘Milkii’ service last week, was the first to integrate into the national fuel aggregator portal. 

Until now, digital fuel payments have been dominated by Ethio telecoms’ telebirr service, while E-birr and the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia’s Nedaj app offered alternatives. Digital fuel payments have seen over 176 billion birr transactions in the past nine months.

“M-Pesa just became the first mobile money operator to integrate into the portal,” Binyam told Shega.

M-Pesa customers can make fuel payments by giving out their phone numbers and the amount of purchase to fuel station attendants, who fill out license plates and relevant details to enable a USSD push message to the user's phone. Customers will fill out their MPESA PINs to make the payment and receive an automatic receipt. A merchant function in the national fuel aggregator allows fuel station owners to track sales, attendance, and volume, which can be broken down further into the payment services.

Ethiopia, which has historically spent more on fuel imports than it earns via merchandise exports, began implementing strict supervision of fuel supply over the past few years. The national fuel aggregator is the latest in a series of endeavors to bring the supply chain under control.

Berho Hassen, State Minister for Transport & Logistics, says the fuel aggregator app creates a convenient portal in which all payment service providers can integrate while ensuring reporting standards. He expects the little over 1,8000 fuel stations in the country to begin using the service for fuel transactions soon.

“We don’t want a single liter to be paid for using cash in the country,” the state minister told Shega.

While Mpesa became the second financial service provider to integrate into the national fuel aggregator, the state minister indicated that the Ministry eyes between 25 and 30 operators. 

Berho also explained how new license plate standards will continuously corroborate a vehicle's fuel purchases with a centralized hub to minimize room for fraud. Smart terminal systems to track inventory, logistics follow up from Djibouti’s ports up to fuel stations and real-time transaction tracking will be enabled under the Ministry’s latest digital fuel strategy, according to the state minister.

Mpesa’s early integration into the national fuel aggregator could play a role in helping it catch up with telebirr, which facilitated nearly 233 billion birr worth of digital fuel payments in 2023/2024.