In a massive two-pronged strategy aimed at dominating both global and local digital payments, PayPal has announced the launch of PayPal World, a new interoperable platform to connect the world’s leading digital wallets, while simultaneously deepening its integration within Kenya by adding direct withdrawals to the M-PESA super app.
Announced on July 23, PayPal World is a groundbreaking initiative designed to solve the long-standing problem of digital wallet fragmentation. While billions of people use wallets like India’s UPI, China’s Weixin Pay, and Latin America’s Mercado Pago, sending money between them has been difficult and costly.
PayPal World aims to dismantle these barriers by creating a technology-agnostic platform where participating wallets can transact seamlessly. The platform launches with PayPal and Venmo as its initial wallets and has signed on a powerful lineup of founding partners, including NPCI International (UPI), Tenpay Global, and Mercado Pago.
For consumers, this means being able to use their familiar local wallet to make payments abroad without worrying about high conversion fees or compatibility issues. For businesses, it unlocks access to nearly two billion users worldwide through a single integration point.
“This is revolutionary,” PayPal CEO Alex Chriss wrote on LinkedIn, describing the platform’s potential to “reduce global payment friction to the level of sending a simple text.”
As PayPal builds its global network, it is also strengthening its position in key local markets. In Kenya, Safaricom has now integrated PayPal withdrawals directly into the M-PESA super app.
This new feature, which appears as a mini-app within M-PESA, is a significant upgrade for Kenya’s burgeoning digital freelance and remote worker economy. Previously, users had to navigate a separate, often clunky web portal to transfer funds from PayPal to M-PESA. The new in-app integration streamlines this process, eliminating multiple logins and browser redirects.
This move is a strategic play by Safaricom to capture more of the international remittance and freelance payment market, a space where users have often turned to alternatives like Wise and Payoneer. By making the PayPal-to-M-PESA transfer more convenient, Safaricom aims to lock in more transaction volume and deepen engagement on its super app.
The timing aligns with M-PESA’s stellar financial performance. According to Safaricom’s latest financial statements for the year ended March 2025:
- Mobile money revenue grew 15.2% to KES 161.1 billion ($1.25 billion).
- One-month active M-PESA customers reached 35.82 million.
- The M-PESA app has been downloaded 13.7 million times, processing KES 2.3 trillion ($17.83 billion) in 2024.
While Equity Bank’s PayPal service remains the preferred option for larger withdrawals (up to $10,000), the new M-PESA integration offers a faster, more convenient, bank-free alternative for the smaller, more frequent transactions typical of the gig economy.
Follow us on socials
A Dual Strategy for Global Dominance
Together, the launch of PayPal World and the enhanced M-PESA integration reveal a comprehensive global strategy. PayPal is simultaneously building the high-level infrastructure to connect the world’s disparate payment systems while also drilling down to the local level to partner with the most dominant players. By doing both, PayPal is positioning itself as an indispensable layer in the future of a truly unified global digital economy.
Discover more from Techspace Africa
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.