How to deposit money to Paypal using M-Pesa

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In a bid to compete with Equity bank’s PayPal to equity Safaricom has come up with an innovative way to deposit and withdraw money directly to PayPal. The most beneficial feature of this service is the fact that you can deposit and make withdrawals. Equity service has only been allowing users to withdraw money from PayPal which they still do at a fee of between 1% - 1.5% depending with the amount you withdraw. On the other hand Mpesa will charge you a flat rate of 4% to deposit and 3% to withdraw from PayPal.

Kenyans love competition and often prefer cheaper options, in this case Equity bank option is cheaper but will take more time to process the transaction and that is where I believe Mpesa to PayPal option will be convenient especially if you need the money real time. 
I have already tried the whole process and I got to say it was seamless and very fast. I will not go into details but will try to outline the steps needed to complete the deposit or withdrawal.
  1. You will need a PayPal account which is easy to open. I opened mine long time ago and been using it to pay for goods and services online. If you have one then no need to create a new one.
  2. Have a safaricom number that is registered with M-Pesa. 
  3. Go to https://www.paypal-mobilemoney.com/m-pesa/ and choose Get started. You will be prompted to give access to your PayPal by choosing AGREE to the terms and conditions. Then add your Safaricom number linked to M-Pesa after which you will receive a confirmation code to link the account.
  4. After successfully linking the account, you will be given the option to Top up to PayPal or withdraw from PayPal. You have the option to calculate the final amount converted from USD to Ksh before depositing the amount.
  5. GO to M-Pesa on your phone and choose Lipan na m-pesa, choose Paybill, Enter paybill no 800088 and you Mobile number as the account number.
  6. You will receive an M-Pesa confirmation message and another message from safaricom indicating a successful deposit. PayPal will also send you a message on your email address confirming the same and your account should reflect with the amount credited. 
I have not encountered any issue and was able to do it in a maximum of 3 minutes which is quite fast. Be ready to cater for M-Pesa paybill transactions costs.  I can confidently say the 4% fee charged to make the deposit is very negligible. For instance I was charged 48sh to Deposit $9 which came to around Ksh948. Something else to note is the final amount will also vary depending with the current Foreign exchange rate of $1 to Ksh.
This service favors both freelancers who get paid via PayPal and would like to make withdrawals and also people who shop online frequently like me. I will test withdrawal later since i didn't leave any amount on my PayPal account and see how it works in terms of processing time.