Lipa na M-PESA
Also known as: LNM, Lipa na Mpesa, pay with M-PESA
Full definition
Lipa na M-PESA is Safaricom's brand for the three M-PESA rails a business uses to accept money from customers: Buy Goods (till number), Paybill (per-customer reference), and Pochi la Biashara (informal merchant wallet). In the M-PESA menu it is the top-level entry point, and both merchants and consumers use the phrase Lipa na M-PESA interchangeably with M-PESA merchant payment.
The design intent is to separate merchant payments from personal peer-to-peer send, and to give Safaricom a distinct merchant tariff (0.55 percent, cap KES 200 on Buy Goods; negotiated per paybill; free at low tickets on Pochi). This is what makes M-PESA the dominant retail payment system in Kenya. By the end of FY26 Safaricom counted 3.13 million registered M-PESA merchants across the three rails, and total M-PESA transaction volume in Kenya of 46.4 billion for the year (Source: Safaricom PLC Annual Report FY2026).
Worked example
In the SIM Toolkit menu on any Safaricom line, the fourth item is Lipa na M-PESA. Opening it exposes Buy Goods and Services, Pay Bill, and (on some menus) Pochi. All three route into the same M-PESA merchant back office.
Verified 2026-09-01. Definitions on paybillke are sourced from Safaricom PLC Annual Report FY2026, the Central Bank of Kenya, the Communications Authority of Kenya, the Kenya Revenue Authority, and the primary operator documentation for each product. How we verify. Report a change.