Vodacom Lesotho has launched an M-Pesa-based investment service that allows customers to put small amounts of money into professionally managed funds directly from their mobile wallets.
Developed by M-Pesa operator VCL Financial Services in partnership with asset manager STANLIB Lesotho, Tsetela enables eligible individual customers and Mokhatlo community savings groups to invest, earn daily interest, check balances using USSD and withdraw funds back into their wallets.
Tsetela means “to invest” in Sesotho and is designed to overcome many of the obstacles that have traditionally kept Basotho outside formal investment markets, including bank account requirements, paperwork, distance from financial institutions and high minimum deposits.
Individual customers can start with M50 – around $3 – while Mokhatlo groups can invest from M300. Customers access the service by dialling *200#, selecting Savings Account and then Tsetela Account.
“Financial inclusion goes beyond access to services; it enables Basotho to participate more fully in the economy and plan more confidently for the future,” says Vodacom Lesotho CEO Mohale Ralebitso. “Even a modest investment of M1 can build value when placed within a structured and regulated investment environment. Tsetela is being introduced at a level that is accessible and aligned with the means of our people.”
Ralebitso says Vodacom intends to add further investment portfolios as the service develops, providing customers with regulated alternatives to informal and potentially unsafe investment schemes.
STANLIB Lesotho is licensed by the Central Bank of Lesotho, while customers’ money will be kept separately from the company’s own funds. The operation will also be audited annually and overseen by an independent trustee, according to the two companies.
From mobile money to mobile wealth
Tsetela is Lesotho’s first M-Pesa-based formal investment platform, but it forms part of a much wider African movement towards mobile micro-investing.
Having established mobile money as a way to transfer cash, pay bills and buy goods, operators are increasingly using the same infrastructure, customer relationships and agent networks to distribute savings, insurance, credit and investment products.
The scale of the underlying platform makes that evolution significant. Mobile money services processed more than $2 trillion globally during 2025, double the value recorded in 2021, with Sub-Saharan Africa remaining the industry’s largest and most important market, according to the GSMA.
The investment products being layered onto those wallets can reach customers who may not use conventional banks or brokers. Crucially, many work through USSD as well as smartphone apps, allowing people with basic handsets and limited data connectivity to participate.
Tsetela’s closest M-Pesa counterpart is Tanzania’s M-Wekeza, launched by Vodacom Tanzania and Sanlam Investments East Africa in November 2024. It combines elements of a savings account with an investment platform, allowing customers to invest in professionally managed financial assets through M-Pesa.
Vodacom Tanzania says customers can start with as little as TZS1,000. The service has already demonstrated the potential scale of wallet-based investing, attracting more than TZS370 billion in customer investments between its launch and March 2026, according to the operator’s latest financial results.
Kenya, the birthplace of M-Pesa, has gone further still. Safaricom’s Mali service gives customers access to a Capital Markets Authority-approved money-market fund from KES100, while the newer Ziidi Money Market Fund also allows users to invest and withdraw through M-Pesa while earning daily returns.
Ziidi attracted more than 450,000 opt-ins shortly after opening to the public in December 2024, demonstrating the demand created when investment products are placed inside a familiar mobile wallet. It was developed with Standard Investment Bank, ALA Capital and Sanlam Investments East Africa, according to Safaricom.
In February 2026, Safaricom extended the model from managed funds into equities with Ziidi Trader. Developed with Kestrel Capital, the service enables M-Pesa’s 35 million Kenyan customers to buy shares on the Nairobi Securities Exchange without first opening a conventional brokerage account.
Ziidi Trader reportedly accounted for 40% of trades by number and 5% of daily trading value during its first days of operation, highlighting how mobile distribution could dramatically increase retail participation in African capital markets.
Kenya had already tested the principle with M-Akiba. Launched in 2017, the government-backed infrastructure bond could be bought through M-Pesa and other mobile channels from KES3,000, compared with the much higher minimum traditionally required for government securities.
A market extending beyond M-Pesa
Other mobile operators and fintechs are following the same trajectory. In Uganda, MTN MoMo offers Yinvesta, through which customers can invest from UGX500 and earn daily returns, with funds available for withdrawal on request. MTN also integrates XENO, a regulated goal-based investment service that lets customers plan, automate and fund investments using MoMo without needing internet access.
Meanwhile, a 2026 Ugandan pilot called Okusevinga uses USSD to open money-market and bond funds to investments from UGX10,000. The service is explicitly intended to connect money held in cash and informal savings groups with regulated investments that can also contribute capital to national development.
App-based services are widening the market further. South Africa’s EasyEquities uses fractional ownership to remove minimum investment requirements, while Nigeria’s Cowrywise provides digitally managed savings and access to naira and dollar-denominated mutual funds. Similar platforms, including Bamboo, Chaka, Risevest and PiggyVest, are helping to build a younger retail-investor market in West Africa.
The models vary. Some provide liquid money-market funds, others offer bonds, equities or goal-based portfolios. What unites them is the attempt to break conventional investments into affordable increments and distribute them through digital services that consumers already understand.
A new role for telcos
For operators, micro-investing offers another route to grow financial services revenue while increasing the value and stickiness of their mobile wallets. Rather than being used only when money needs to be sent or spent, a wallet containing a customer’s investments becomes part of their longer-term financial life.
It also creates a partnership model in which the operator supplies distribution, identity, payments and customer reach, while licensed asset managers provide investment expertise, regulatory compliance and custody of funds.
However, reducing the minimum investment does not remove investment risk. Providers will need to explain clearly where money is invested, what fees apply, how quickly it can be withdrawn and whether returns can fluctuate. Financial education and strong safeguards against fraud will be as important as technical access, particularly as consumers move from guaranteed savings products into funds, bonds and shares.
Tsetela nevertheless shows how far the mobile money proposition is moving. What began as a substitute for cash transfers is becoming a distribution layer for a much wider financial system.
The next phase of African financial inclusion may therefore be less about giving people somewhere digital to keep and spend their money – and more about giving them a regulated way to make even very small amounts of it grow.
