Kenya's telco Safaricom and UK-based TerraPay have launched mobile money transfers to Bangladesh and Pakistan through a partnership that also aims to roll out to India and Nepal in a few months.

More than 30 million Safaricom customers, using its mobile money M-Pesa platform, will be able to send and receive money to over 200 million people living in the two Asian countries, Safaricom and TerraPay said in statements announcing the deal.

TerraPay will be among 35 partners under Safaricom's M-Pesa Global service that connects Kenyans wishing to send or receive money with more than 170 countries around the world.

M-Pesa customers can now send and receive money to Bangladesh and Pakistan through the M-Pesa Global service under the M-Pesa Super App, they said.

Peter Ndegwa, the CEO of Safaricom, the leading telecommunication company in East Africa, said the partnership will help open up one of the world’s largest remittance markets.

“TerraPay’s interoperable technology platform will enable our customers to execute secured and low-cost payments across key regions further encouraging the adoption of digital payments in the region," he said. “We are therefore delighted to partner with TerraPay.”

TerraPay founder and CEO Ambar Sur said the deal will spur the development of mobile financial service operators enabling them to directly scale globally and enable Safaricom customers to access TerraPay’s widespread partner network of 4.5 billion bank accounts and 1.5 billion mobile wallets.

“Our partnership with Safaricom will boost our capabilities in providing an inclusive global financial ecosystem with superlative technical solutions and cultivate an affinity by empowering Safaricom customers with fast and affordable borderless payment options,” Sur said.

Registered and regulated across 27 global markets, TerraPay is a leading global partner to banks, mobile wallets, money transfer operators, merchants, and financial institutions, creating a global payments ecosystem that supports a range of diverse payment types and instruments.

(Editing by Brinda Darasha; brinda.darasha@lseg.com)