Pesapal Review

Pesapal is a Nairobi payments company, founded in 2009, that lets businesses in East and Southern Africa accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards and mobile money such as M-Pesa. It sells online checkout (API, plugins, a hosted payments page, payment links and e-invoices), Sabi card terminals, the Rack point-of-sale and inventory system, a bulk payout tool called Openfloat, and merchant loans. The Central Bank of Kenya has licensed Pesapal Limited as a payment service provider since June 2021, and the company says it is also regulated in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia. Its site also has Malawi and Zimbabwe pages. Each business signs a merchant agreement with Pesapal itself. Its takings sit in a trust account and are paid out to a local bank account when the business asks; Pesapal's help pages put that at 48 hours to 3 working days. The main weakness for a buyer is price: as of October 2026 Pesapal publishes no merchant rates. Its old pricing page is gone, and its own FAQ links to a pricing page that does not exist. KCB Group, Kenya's largest bank, has agreed to buy 22.23% of the company, subject to regulatory approval. Pesapal's Trustpilot profile is small and very negative, and most complaints are about withdrawals that are delayed or held.

What Pesapal is

Pesapal is a Kenyan payments company that lets businesses take card and mobile money payments online and in person. It is based in Nairobi, and its site has country pages for Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The Malawi and Zimbabwe pages name local companies, Pesapal Malawi Limited and Pesapal Zimbabwe Limited. Pesapal says it has 300+ people in five African countries and is regulated by the central banks of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Zambia.

Pesapal publishes three different merchant counts. Its online-payments and POS pages say over 8,000 merchants across East Africa, its About page says tens of thousands of businesses since 2009, and Agosta Liko told The Standard in 2022 that it had 30,000 merchants, mostly in hospitality. We have not used any one figure as current.

History and ownership

Pesapal says it was founded in 2009. In a 2022 interview with The Standard, co-founder Agosta Liko said he started it with Onesmus Kagwanja, whom he met at Moi University. The two first built a travel site for East Africa and turned to payments because there was no workable local payment gateway. Liko said angel investors came in during 2010 and 2011, but the company relied for a while on revenue from a sister software business. Liko is chief executive according to the Central Bank of Kenya's 2026 register. In 2021, Pesapal's own announcement of its CBK licence quoted Mark Mwongela as CEO.

In a notice dated 31 October 2025 and made public on 3 November, KCB Group, Kenya's largest commercial bank by assets, said it had agreed to buy an undisclosed minority stake in Pesapal, subject to regulatory approval. On 21 August 2026, Tanzania's Fair Competition Commission published a notice giving the size: 22.23% of Pesapal Limited's issued share capital, which would give KCB indirect control of Pesapal Tanzania Limited. The notice called it a proposed acquisition under review, and as of late September 2026 KCB had not said whether the shares had changed hands. We therefore describe KCB as an agreed minority investor, not an owner.

Why we list Pesapal as a payment facilitator

Each business signs a merchant agreement with Pesapal itself, not with a bank. Pesapal collects the payments, holds the money in a trust account and pays it out to the merchant's bank account when asked. It integrates with banks, mobile money operators and the card schemes and earns a commission from merchants on each transaction, as described in the 2025 High Court judgment. That is the aggregator, or payment facilitator, model. Pesapal is more than a gateway passing card data to a merchant's own acquiring bank, and it is not the merchant of record, because buyers buy from the merchant.

What it costs

Pesapal does not publish its merchant rates. As of October 2026 its product pages promise simple per-transaction pricing with no hidden fees, and its business FAQ says the fee is on its pricing page. But that link goes nowhere, and the pricing page it used to run at pesapal.com/business/pricing returns a 404 in every country version. The last archived copy, from 31 March 2023, listed 3.5% per online transaction, 2.9% per POS transaction, KSh 8,999 for a Sabi terminal and no sign-up or monthly fees. Those were Pesapal's own figures, but they are three years old and no longer published, so treat them as history, not a quote. Rates are quoted per account. Get the rate for cards and mobile money separately, in writing, and ask whether 16% VAT is added.

The prices Pesapal does publish are for add-on products. Its business landing page advertises a flat KES 40 per transaction for Openfloat bulk payments and bill payments. Its sales FAQ prices the Rack POS terminal with inventory software at KES 4,999 a month as a service, with an optional one-off KES 15,000 for Pesapal to set up your stock and train staff. None of these pages says whether VAT is included. Pesapal publishes no chargeback, refund, PCI or withdrawal fees, and we have left those fields blank instead of guessing.

How it works

You register a business account online and receive API keys by email. Before you can take more than a small amount, you must sign the merchant agreement and send business documents. The help centre gives the starting cap as both KSh 1,000 and US$10. Online, you can connect the API or a ready-made e-commerce plugin, or skip the website and use a hosted payments page, payment links or e-invoices. Customers can pay with Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards and with mobile money such as M-Pesa. The help centre caps a single mobile money payment at KSh 70,000.

In store, Pesapal sells its own terminals: an Android Smart POS, a connected POS and a mobile POS. They take chip and tap card payments plus M-Pesa Till, Paybill and Express payments over 4G or Wi-Fi. The help centre says Sabi terminals accept local currency in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia, plus US dollars, and that delivery can take up to seven business days. Around payments, Pesapal sells sector software: an Oracle Hospitality integration, the Reserveport booking engine, Ticketsasa event ticketing, Rack inventory POS, a forecourt system for petrol stations with KRA eTIMS integration, and Pesapal Credit loans based on a merchant's trading history.

Payouts and holds

Payouts are not automatic. The business FAQ says the money you collect is held in a trust account until you ask for it to be settled to your bank account, and that Pesapal only settles to bank accounts in your country of registration. You click Withdraw Funds, choose the currency and amount, and the money goes to the account you gave at sign-up.

Pesapal's own pages disagree on how long that takes. The withdrawal help article says 48 business hours. The Sabi POS article says a statement within 24 hours and funds within 48 hours. The payments-page product page says 2 business days, and the business FAQ says 72 working hours, a maximum of 3 working days. The POS section of its business landing page advertises next-day settlement. In May 2023 Pesapal also announced instant settlement for Kenyan merchants through its Openfloat wallet, but its current pages do not explain how that works or what it costs. Plan on up to three working days, and ask Pesapal to put the settlement time in your agreement. Pesapal's buyer terms say it may delay processing of suspicious transactions at its sole discretion. The merchant agreement, which would set out reserves and holds for sellers, is not published.

Contracts and terms

Pesapal does not publish its merchant agreement. The terms on its site are its buyer terms, and they say Pesapal may refuse or end a registration with or without cause and limit or suspend the service at its sole discretion, under Kenyan law. Because the merchant contract is only given to you once you go live, we could not check its length, notice period, early termination terms, reserve rights or chargeback handling. Ask for it before you build an integration or rent terminals, and check how disputes are charged and how long funds can be held after you leave.

Regulation and legal record

The Central Bank of Kenya's directory of authorised payment service providers, as at 17 June 2026, lists Pesapal Limited as first licensed on 1 June 2021. It is approved to process, store, send and facilitate mobile money payments and to provide a platform that processes payments on behalf of merchants. Pesapal's 2021 announcement said the licence was for payment gateway services under the National Payment System Act, 2011. Tanzania's competition regulator has described Pesapal Tanzania Limited as licensed by the Bank of Tanzania.

Pesapal has a significant tax case in its history. The Kenya Revenue Authority audited it for 2015 to 2019 and assessed KSh 76.8 million in VAT, plus penalties and interest, on its merchant commissions. The Tax Appeals Tribunal upheld the assessment in June 2023, when media reports described the dispute as worth about KSh 232 million. On 27 August 2025, in Pesapal Limited v Commissioner of Domestic Taxes, the High Court set it aside and held that a licensed payment service provider's commissions are VAT-exempt financial services. Pesapal brought that appeal and won it. We found no regulatory enforcement action or lawsuit against Pesapal.

Reputation and complaints

Public merchant feedback is thin and negative. As of 31 October 2026 Pesapal's Trustpilot profile, which the company has claimed, scores 1.8 from 19 reviews, with 89% one-star and 11% five-star, and Pesapal had replied to 28% of negative reviews. The recent reviews, mostly from merchants and users in Kenya and Uganda, describe withdrawals that were slow, held during verification or never reached the bank, accounts disabled after verification, and support that did not respond. Nineteen reviews is a small sample for a company of Pesapal's age and size, but the complaints match the weak points in its own documentation: payouts on request, conflicting settlement times and terms you cannot read in advance.

Who it suits

Pesapal makes most sense for a Kenyan or East African business that wants cards, including American Express, and M-Pesa through one licensed local provider, especially if it is a hotel, lodge, tour operator, school, event organiser, retailer or fuel station that can use Pesapal's sector software. It suits a business that can negotiate: ask for the rate per method, VAT basis, settlement time, chargeback fee and the full merchant agreement in writing before you sign. If you need published pricing to compare before talking to sales, or automatic payouts on a fixed schedule, Pesapal's current documentation will not give you that.