B2C — Kenya glossary (2026)

Full definition

B2C is the Daraja API for the direction of money from a merchant to a customer. Where C2B is the payin rail, B2C is the payout rail, and it is what powers withdrawals on Kenyan betting apps, insurance claim payouts, ride-hailing driver earnings, employer salary disbursements, refunds on e-commerce, and government payouts through paybill.

The merchant needs an M-PESA business account with sufficient float (Safaricom will not let a paybill overdraw), an OAuth client on Daraja, and a signed B2C initiate request. The request specifies the recipient MSISDN, the amount, and the command ID (SalaryPayment, BusinessPayment, PromotionPayment). Safaricom asynchronously pushes the funds into the recipient's M-PESA and calls the merchant callback with the result.

Daily B2C limits and per-transaction caps depend on the merchant tier. Standard limits are the same as any M-PESA transaction (KES 250,000 per transaction, KES 500,000 daily balance cap), with enterprise-tier paybills negotiating higher.

Worked example

A betting operator queues a withdrawal for a customer who requested KES 5,000. The operator posts a B2C request to Daraja with the customer's MSISDN. Safaricom debits the operator's paybill, credits the customer's M-PESA. Both sides get an SMS.

Related terms

Daraja API

Daraja API is Safaricom's public developer platform for M-PESA, launched in 2017. It exposes REST endpoints for STK Push (customer-initiated payment), C2B (paybill or till payin), B2C (business-initiated payout), B2B, transaction status and reversal, so any merchant can integrate M-PESA into their app.

C2B

C2B (Customer to Business) is the Daraja API family for accepting money from customers to a merchant paybill or till. It includes the Register URL endpoint (to give Safaricom the merchant callback), the Validation URL (optional real-time accept/reject), and the Confirmation URL (final receipt delivery).

STK Push

STK Push (also called M-PESA Express or Lipa na M-PESA Online) is the Safaricom Daraja API that lets a merchant push a payment prompt to a customer's phone. The customer sees a native M-PESA dialog with the merchant name and amount pre-filled, and confirms with their PIN.

Paybill

A paybill is a Safaricom shortcode (5 to 7 digits) that a business or institution uses to collect payments where each customer has their own account reference. The customer selects Lipa na M-PESA, Pay Bill, enters the paybill, an account number and the amount.

Settlement

Settlement is the transfer of accepted payments from the merchant's paybill or till into their linked bank account. M-PESA merchants can settle same-day on request, or default to next-business-day into the linked commercial bank; Card settlement in Kenya is typically T+1 for Visa or Mastercard, longer for cross-border acquirers.

Full definition

Worked example

Related terms

Go deeper on paybillke