Vodacom, the largest mobile operator in South Africa, will put M-Pesa on its USSD menu today (28 July) as part of a service re-launch, according to ITWeb.

Vodacom spokesperson Richard Boorman did not reveal which elements of the mobile money service would be introduced on USSD, but said different aspects would be added over an extended period of time. There would be no ‘big bang’ launch.

Unstructured supplementary service data, or USSD, can create a real-time GSM connection using messages up to 182 alphanumeric characters in length.

Boorman told ITWeb that Vodacom would outline further plans about how it intends to move forward with M-Pesa at a media briefing scheduled for this week.

A re-launch has been expected since May when Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub said a new IT platform was being built that would interface directly into banks to better enable the transfer of money from a bank account to a mobile wallet.

Although M-Pesa has been offered in South Africa since September 2010, it is used by less than one million users. Given the size of the market, it’s a disappointing take-up. At service launch it was estimated there were more than 13 million “economically active” people without a bank account in South Africa.

M-Pesa, developed by Vodafone – which has a controlling stake in Vodacom – has of course been famously successful in Kenya. The mobile money service is also showing strong traction Tanzania and India.