CBK Approves Mpesa Number Masking for Privacy

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has authorised Safaricom to implement phone number masking across Mpesa transactions in Paybill, Till, and Buy Goods.

According to the CBK’s National Payments Strategy 2022–2025, the bank outlined a data protection framework tailored for digital payments, committing to facilitating the development of a framework for financial data protection.

“The focus will be on enhancing safeguards on how payment data is collected, stored and shared. The overall objective will be to ensure payments data is used safely and securely to enhance a user’s privacy, reducing fraud and facilitating positive elements such as use of data to enhance security, innovation, access to new services and customer-centricity approaches,” The strategy read.

Following CBK has approval to Safaricom’s plan to mask phone numbers in mobile money transactions, Kenyans will be able to send money without exposing their full numbers.

Merchants will continue receiving payment notifications, but customers’ full phone numbers will no longer be visible, instead, they will be shown in a masked format, for example, 0722XXXXXX.

The payment process remains unchanged, The update only limits the amount of personal data that travels with each transaction.

Safaricom had previously applied similar privacy measures in its Pochi la Biashara service, as users access transaction details with the phone numbers unrevealed.

Merchants are expected to verify payments through M-Pesa business apps, USSD codes, or integrated point-of-sale systems, rather than accessing full phone numbers.