M-KOPA Kenya has passed a major milestone, extending more than $1.6 billion (KES 207 billion) in credit to customers in Kenya. The disclosure came alongside the company’s first Kenya-focused impact report, which tracks its evolution from a rural solar provider to a mainstream lender in the mass-market segment. The figures underline how deeply the pay-as-you-go fintech has become woven into the country’s consumer credit landscape, particularly for low-income and previously unbanked households.
From Solar Roots to Smartphone Finance
Launched to bring affordable solar systems to off-grid communities, M-KOPA has gradually shifted into a broad-based digital finance platform. Over roughly fifteen years, it has served 4.8 million customers in Kenya, many of whom had never interacted with formal banking channels before joining the platform. Smartphones now sit at the center of its offering, with 4.5 million Kenyans having acquired a device through M-KOPA and 2.1 million doing so as first-time smartphone owners.
Deepening Financial Inclusion
The impact report highlights how the company has become an entry point into formal finance for many low-income users. M-KOPA says 37 percent of its customers accessed their first formal loan through its platform, using pay-as-you-go credit to build digital repayment histories. In addition, 68 percent obtained their first health insurance cover via the “More than a Phone” bundle, which packages cash loans, insurance, and other essential digital services into a single, accessible product.
Contribution to Kenya’s Formal Economy
Beyond its lending activities, M-KOPA is increasingly visible in Kenya’s formal economy through taxes, procurement, and local manufacturing. In 2024, the company paid KES 3.79 billion (about $29.2 million) in taxes and spent KES 20.3 billion (around $156.5 million) on procurement, channeling significant capital into domestic supply chains. Its Nairobi-based phone assembly facility, described as the largest in Africa, has produced two million devices so far while training technicians in electronics assembly and quality control, and the business now directly employs 1,320 staff and works with 14,000 sales agents nationwide.
Navigating Consumer Credit Concerns
M-KOPA’s growth comes at a time when Kenya’s consumer credit sector faces scrutiny over debt stress and hardline collection practices targeting low-income borrowers. The company says its model is designed to avoid over-indebtedness by eliminating hidden fees, forgoing punitive late-payment penalties, and preventing customers who fall behind from accumulating additional debt. Its device-locking mechanism, which can disable phones or motorbikes when payments are missed, remains controversial, but M-KOPA argues it keeps liabilities from spiraling and notes that customers can return devices and reclaim their deposits.
Electric Mobility and Climate Impact
The report also details M-KOPA’s move into electric mobility through a growing fleet of financed e-motorbikes. More than 5,000 electric motorbikes have been funded for riders in Nairobi using the same pay-as-you-go model, opening up an asset class that is typically inaccessible to informal workers without collateral. According to the company, its combination of solar products, smartphone refurbishment, and EV financing has collectively avoided 2.03 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent emissions since 2010, reinforcing its positioning at the intersection of digital finance and climate action.
M-KOPA Kenya’s $1.6 billion credit milestone and the data in its impact report illustrate how far the company has come from its beginnings in rural solar. By blending asset financing, digital services, and localized manufacturing, it has embedded itself in both Kenya’s household economies and its formal tax and supply-chain systems. As regulators and policymakers continue to probe consumer credit practices, M-KOPA’s next challenge will be to sustain rapid growth while proving that its pay-as-you-go model can balance financial inclusion, customer protection, and climate-positive innovation at scale.