Airtel Money launches ‘Bizna Wallet’, its Pochi la Biashara Rival

Airtel Money Kenya announced four things at one Nairobi event on Monday 3 August. It launched Bizna Wallet, a business wallet for small traders. It moved its Rudishiwa rewards from airtime to cash. It named Michael Bonke acting managing director. And it gave Djibril Tobe, who has run the Airtel phone network since 1 July, his first public outing.

What Bizna Wallet is

Bizna Wallet is a second wallet on your existing Airtel Money account. It holds only business money. You register on *334# or in the My Airtel App, pick the Bizna Wallet option, and customer payments land somewhere separate from your personal balance. Money moves between the two.

Airtel says the wallet lets a trader separate business income from household money, watch daily sales, pull mini statements, receive payments from other mobile money networks, and block unauthorised reversals.

Safaricom has sold the same idea since October 2020 as Pochi la Biashara, so Airtel arrives almost six years late. We explained how Pochi works in June and covered its launch in 2020. Pochi closed the year to March 2026 with 2.1 million active merchants, up 81.5%, on revenue of KES 4 billion, up 86%, per Safaricom’s FY26 results.

The free claim, and what Airtel has not said

Bonke said paying a Bizna merchant costs the customer nothing. “From one shilling to two hundred and fifty thousand shillings, you can pay to any Bizna Wallet in Kenya for free,” he said.

KES 250,000 is the largest single mobile money transaction Kenya allows, a limit the Central Bank set in 2023 covering Airtel Money and M-PESA alike.

Safaricom must have pre-empted this. Under their new PATA MORE campaign, announced 31 July, paying a Pochi merchant is free up to KES 200, with a flat KES 50 ceiling above KES 2,500, for 90 days from 1 August. Buy Goods collections go free up to KES 500 from 7 August, and we published the full tariff tables.

Rudishiwa: half the fee, not half the amount

Airtel’s Rudishiwa began in 2023 refunding half your agent withdrawal fee as airtime. It grew to Paybill in 2024 and bank-to-wallet transfers in 2025. From Monday it pays cash into a dedicated Cashback Wallet on *334# and in the app, which you sweep into your main wallet.

The release says “50% cashback on eligible transactions”, which reads as half the money you sent. It is 50% of transaction fee. We told you this back in mid-July.

Enrolment is automatic, rewards land instantly, and transactions qualify from KES 101. So if you use Paybills, transfers to other networks, wallet-to-banks, etc. you get those cashbacks.

Days before that switch we found Airtel had quietly raised its charges for sending to M-PESA to match Safaricom’s.

Bonke in, Tobe on data centres

Bonke has 15 years in telecoms and fintech, close to a decade at Airtel Money. He fills the seat Anne Kinuthia-Otieno left on 25 July; she starts at Visa today as head of East Africa. Airtel Money Kenya is Central Bank-supervised and separate from the phone network, so it has its own managing director.

Tobe also talked up Airtel’s 44MW Nxtra data centre at Tatu City. Airtel Africa’s own page says it is ready for service in the first quarter of 2027. He said Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle and Apple have shown interest in hosting there. None of the five has confirmed that. He also said Airtel awaits Communications Authority approval for SpaceX Direct-to-Cell coverage after a pilot. No satellite service launched on Monday.

Why merchants, and why now

Kenya had 53.4 million mobile money subscriptions in the Communications Authority’s report for January to March 2026. Safaricom held 89.1%. The other 10.9% is effectively all Airtel Money, which works out at about 5.8 million subscriptions. Airtel’s own claim of more than six million customers sits roughly where the regulator’s share figure puts it.

Price pressure is also coming from banks. Nineteen banks and microfinance banks now charge nothing on PesaLink transfers below KES 1,000 and a flat KES 20 above that, and we listed every one in July. PesaLink is the instant bank-to-bank rail the banks own. Sending KES 50,000 costs KES 108 on M-PESA and KES 20 there. It does not reach a mama mboga’s wallet, so it competes for salaries, rent and supplier payments, not shop change. It still sets a number mobile money has to answer.

All of that comes months before Airtel Africa floats Airtel Money in London, confirmed for the second half of 2026. A growing merchant base is a useful figure for a prospectus.

If you run a small business on Airtel Money, Bizna Wallet is free to join and free for customers to pay into today. Watch whether that free window changes quietly, given Airtel’s July form, and what it costs to take the money back out.