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pawaPay Gets Kenya PSP Approval for Merchant Payments

pawaPay Gets Kenya PSP Approval for Merchant Payments
pawaPay has received another local payment approval in Africa. The company said on September 16 that Quidexplus Kenya Limited was authorized by the Central Bank of Kenya to provide Payment Gateway services.

The permission covers receiving, processing and settlement of merchant payments. However, there is one detail in the CBK directory which is easy to miss. Quidexplus was licensed on June 17, 2026, almost three months before the pawaPay announcement. So September is the announcement date, not the license date.

Kenya Becomes Part of a Bigger Local Setup

pawaPay does not use one company for all African markets. Its current Payment Providers page lists local entities market by market. 15M counted 21 African entities on that page.

Kenya is represented by Quidexplus Kenya Limited. The same list also contains local companies for Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Zambia, Senegal, South Africa and other markets.

This number shows how pawaPay is building the network. Merchants can connect through one pawaPay integration, but the local payment company behind the service is not always the same.

Betting Is Already in the Kenya Product

The CBK license is not specific to betting. Still, pawaPay already separates betting payments in Kenya. Its betting fees page includes Kenya and M-PESA. Airtel betting payments also appear separately in the company’s system status data.

There are different flows for:

  • Web deposits;
  • USSD deposits;
  • Payouts.

That makes the gaming link more concrete. Betting is not just a possible use case for the gateway: pawaPay already separates these transactions within its Kenya setup.

Licensed and Unlicensed Gambling Are Treated Differently

pawaPay’s prohibited-business rules ban unlicensed gambling, betting and lottery businesses. Licensed gambling is not written there as a completely prohibited category.

The PSP authorization covers Quidexplus Kenya Limited only. Betting operators still need separate gaming approval in Kenya. pawaPay, meanwhile, already runs betting payment flows in the market as part of a wider African network of 21 local payment entities.