Kenya in talks with Meta to have Facebook integrated with M-Pesa for easy content monetization

If all goes as the country’s president wishes, then soon Kenya will digitally link its mobile money service with Facebook, for speedy monetization of creative content.

The President of Kenya, William Ruto has revealed that his government was already negotiating with the management of Meta, the company which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, so that the online platforms could be linked to M-Pesa.

The move, according to President Ruto is to make it easier and faster for Kenyan digital content creators, especially the youth to get paid for their works through the local mobile money system of M-pesa.

Addressing members of the public and artists during the 97th Kenya Music Festival President Wiliam Ruto maintained that it was high time for Kenyans to start receiving their earnings from abroad, through the popular mobile money transacting digital platform.

The state music concert which President Ruto was gracing was held at the Sagana State Lodge in Nyeri.

It should be recalled that the global mobile money transfer service was essentially invented by Kenyan youth back in 2007 and since then the M-Pesa spread to other East African countries, later on grew to cover the continent and eventually other service providers around the globe adopted it.

And now with the advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) young Kenyans are churning out thousands of creative content in a day, much of which get posted or shared on digital platforms and most being saleable.

A number of Kenyans as well as other East Africans have been monetizing their content shared on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, but the payments are usually wired into their bank accounts.

“Now we want M-Pesa to be integrated on Facebook so that local creators in Kenya can get their money more easily and quickly straight to the palms of their hands,” President Ruto stated.

The announcement comes as part of a wider plan to support the growing creative and digital economy in Kenya, especially among young people who are increasingly turning to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube to earn a living.