Payment methods in Tanzania

Mixx by Yas is the mobile-money service in Tanzania formerly known as Tigo Pesa. Following Axian Telecom's takeover, Tigo Tanzania rebranded to Yas and Tigo Pesa became Mixx by Yas in November 2024, offering transfers, payments, loans and savings.

M-Pesa is Kenya's transformative mobile money service, launched by Safaricom in 2007. It enables users to send money, pay bills, buy goods, and access financial services via a basic mobile phone — no smartphone or bank account required. With over 30 million active users and 93% market share in Kenyan mobile money, M-Pesa is the default payment method for a large portion of the population and is deeply integrated into e-commerce via the Daraja API and third-party gateways like Flutterwave and Pesapal.

Airtel Money is Kenya's second-largest mobile money provider, holding approximately 6.6% market share as of 2024 (up from 2.8%). It operates similarly to M-Pesa and enables money transfers, bill payments, and merchant payments via USSD and the Airtel Money app.

Selcom Pay is Tanzania's largest payments platform offering wallet, QR and Pay-by-Link options for online and in-store consumer payments. Operator: Selcom (Selcom Microfinance Bank). Est. users: Thousands of merchants; broad user base (2024).

Tingg is Cellulant's consumer payments app and checkout that aggregates mobile money, cards and bank rails across eight African markets. Operator: Cellulant Corporation. Est. users: Large pan-African user base (2024).

Chipper Cash is a pan-African wallet for free cross-border transfers, bill pay, virtual cards and online payments across seven markets. Operator: Chipper Technologies Inc. Est. users: 7M+ users (2024).

TIPS is Tanzania's national instant payment system designed to enable real-time, inclusive payments across banks and mobile money providers. It builds on Tanzania's existing interoperability foundation to create a unified national payment rail.