Safaricom will begin implementing a number masking feature for M-Pesa transactions in Kenya this week, a move that will limit the personal information shared between users during payments. The initiative, part of a broader data minimization strategy, will replace a customer's full phone number with a unique, anonymized identifier during transaction notifications, effectively ending the use of phone numbers as a primary identifier on the platform.

The rollout, confirmed in a notice to customers, is scheduled to start on March 30, 2026. It follows a previous update in February where Safaricom began hiding the last three digits of a sender's phone number on transaction receipts. This latest step represents a more comprehensive shift, designed to enhance user privacy by preventing the sharing of personal contact details during financial interactions.

This policy change in Kenya coincides with the expansion of M-Pesa's services in other markets. In Ethiopia, where Safaricom launched its mobile money service in 2023, M-Pesa has entered into a partnership with the Amhara region to facilitate tax collection. The deal, signed with the Amhara Revenue Authority, will allow businesses and individuals in the region to pay taxes, including income tax and value-added tax, directly through the M-Pesa platform.

The Ethiopian tax collection service is expected to launch in the coming weeks, according to local reports. The foray into digital government services represents a strategic expansion for M-Pesa Ethiopia as it seeks to build its user base in a market that only recently opened to foreign mobile money operators. Safaricom holds a 55.7% stake in the Ethiopian venture, with its parent company, Vodacom Group, and the British development finance institution CDC Group among the other shareholders.

Privacy advocates in Kenya have welcomed the number masking initiative, viewing it as a necessary step in an era of increasing digital financial activity. The widespread use of M-Pesa, which processes billions of transactions annually, has made phone numbers a common piece of transactional data. Analysts suggest the change could set a precedent for other mobile money and fintech platforms across Africa, where similar privacy considerations are gaining prominence among regulators and consumers.

Safaricom has not indicated whether the data minimization features will be extended to its operations in other markets, such as Tanzania or the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company's focus in Ethiopia currently appears centered on service diversification and user acquisition. The parallel developments in Kenya and Ethiopia highlight M-Pesa's dual trajectory: refining its core product with enhanced privacy safeguards in established markets while pursuing new, high-value use cases in emerging ones to drive growth and financial inclusion.