TendePay Limited has received approval from the Central Bank of Kenya to operate an e-wallet, adding regulated stored value capability to its payments platform. The authorization builds on the company’s existing Payment Service Provider licence, which it received in January 2025 under Kenya’s National Payment System framework. It marks a notable expansion of Tende Pay’s ability to support faster, safer, and more inclusive digital payment infrastructure.
A Regulatory Step Beyond Payment Processing
The new approval extends Tende Pay’s role beyond processing and settling payments on behalf of merchants. As a Payment Service Provider, the company was already authorized to facilitate transactions for businesses, but e-wallet capability allows regulated holding and movement of digital value. This shift is significant because payments become more than a simple transfer between two parties, enabling value to be stored, managed, and embedded across digital experiences.
Platform Evolution and Existing Capabilities
Tende Pay was founded in 2020 with an initial focus on helping businesses manage petty cash before expanding into broader spend management and payments services. Its current platform provides tools for petty cash management, bulk payments, payroll processing, supplier payments, collections, and reconciliations. The company also supports one-off and recurring transactions through M-Pesa, bank transfers, and Paybill integrations, with user wallets, approval levels, and transaction limits available to businesses.
Use Cases and Market Implications
An e-wallet can serve as an account-like financial layer beneath marketplaces, mobility platforms, media networks, loyalty programmes, and digital commerce businesses. It may support digital balances, wallet-to-wallet transfers, merchant payments, collections, disbursements, payouts, refunds, and recurring transactions, subject to the scope of the approval and applicable regulation. Once digital value sits within regulated infrastructure, platforms can automate split payments, trigger rewards, release funds under defined conditions, and manage settlements more efficiently.
Broader Significance for Digital Payments
The approval comes as Kenyan fintech companies seek to deepen their role in the country’s rapidly evolving digital payments sector. Regulated e-wallet services can help businesses hold, move, and manage funds within a supervised framework, potentially reducing friction for collections and payouts. This is particularly relevant for platforms that need to manage complex flows such as marketplace settlements, driver earnings, and loyalty rewards.
Recent Partnerships and Strategic Growth
In September 2025, Tende Pay partnered with Pesalink to enable businesses to make single and bulk payments of up to KSh 999,999 instantly across Kenyan banks. The integration also supports automatic reconciliation of incoming bank payments and reflected the company’s evolution into a full spend management platform. These developments show how Tende Pay has gradually expanded from expense management into a broader regulated payments infrastructure provider.
Regulatory Trust and Leadership Outlook
Chief Executive Officer Abel Masai has previously described the company’s regulatory authorizations as a foundation for expanding payment solutions across Kenya. Tende Pay said the e-wallet approval follows months of disciplined work across compliance, technology, and product development. The company also emphasized its commitment to governance and consumer protection, thanking its team, regulator, and partners for their support.
Tende Pay’s new e-wallet approval represents an important expansion of Kenya’s regulated payments ecosystem and strengthens the company’s position beyond basic payment processing. While the license does not guarantee every possible use case, it provides a compliant foundation for more flexible fund management and richer digital payment experiences. The company’s next phase will depend on how it translates this approval into safe, practical, and commercially viable products for businesses and consumers.