How to find your Lipa na MPESA’s operator ID for those using MPESA for business facility

Lipa na MPESA mobile money facility has become a force to reckon with in Kenya, with almost every business establishment adopting the feature to accept transactions from MPESA users. Customers buying items or services from businesses can choose to pay for through Lipa na MPESA facility if the businesses have the facility available as an alternative payment method. But there are several functionalities that these businesses can perform right o their phone if they do have Lipa na MPESA till or Pay Bill number.

But to access some of these features, business owners need to have something they call “Operator ID”, an additional step that Safaricom deployed probably to increase the security on the platform. While other needed requirements such as Till or Pay Bill numbers are pretty straight forward, even your MPESA PIN, most businesses have been confused on how they could get their Operator ID, or if they already have it.

I remember a friend who applied for a short term Till number for personal reasons and was perplexed to find something called “Operator ID” while trying to access some features on the platform. The Operator ID is basically needed when performing most transactions on your MPESA till or Pay bill such as checking account balance, requesting for a statement and so on.

How to get your Till or Pay Bill number’s Operator ID

After doing several unsuccessful rounds on the internet and finally engaging the Safaricom customer care, we found out that an Operator ID is actually something you already have and very easy to get. You are actually supposed to have received an Operator ID while setting up your Lipa na MPESA account via a text message, but just in case you’ve forgotten, the Operator ID is a combination of your name’s initials. So, if your have a name like Safaricom’s CEO Peter Ndegwa, then your Operator ID should be something like “PN”. This applies for personal Till numbers or Pay bill numbers.