The basics of an M-Pesa agent shop (sub-gent) are to accept deposits, offer withdrawals and register new M-Pesa lines.
There are a few things you will need;
Hard cash for ‘float’, a high-traffic business location, cash for branding, business license (not in all cases) and an employee (if needed).
You can join as an agent.
An agent needs Kshs. 500,000 for ‘float’ plus the other relevant business expenditures such as branding and rent.
Safaricom also mentions aggregator roles of an agent.
The aggregator operates several shops and needs at least Kshs. 100,000 ‘float’ for each shop, Kshs. 100,000 for a line replacement cards (Simex) and additional capital to help supervise sub-agents, pay rent etc.
The aggregator is supposed to be a company with at least three sub-agents operating under it and whose locations are in different counties. There are stringent rules laid out on who can be an agent and how they should operate. These are found on the Safaricom website.
You can also join as a sub-agent.
A sub-agent needs Kshs. 30,000 minimum for ‘float’. The sub-agent is registered under an agent using the line aggregation process meaning that the sub-agent is still directly recognized by Safaricom. Since the aggregator recruits sub-agents, they get to keep 20% of the commissions to every sub-agent under them.
Rogue agents
Some rogue agents will fail to properly aggregate the sub-agent line so that they can scoop more of their commissions. This happens since Safaricom will now pay the agent all the commissions and the agent then decides how much they want to give the sub-agent. This is also where the concept of buying mpesa till number lines originated. Agents force new sub-agents to pay for ‘goodwill’ before they get new lines and the amount can be as low as Kshs. 10,000 to as high as Kshs. 100,000.
Below is an example of monthly earnings from an actual M-Pesa shop in Nairobi
| Starting costs (minus business license) | |
| Getting M-Pesa line (“Goodwill”) | Kshs 50,000 |
| Float balance | Kshs 105,000 |
| Recurrent costs | |
| Part of shop rent paid from M-Pesa income | Kshs 11,000 |
| Average transactions per day (based on the previous months statements) | Kshs 78 |
| Employee salary | Kshs 10,500 |
| Revenues | |
| Commissions from the previous month | Kshs 48,360 |
