Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore has dismissed as fake the Internet story that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook want to buy M-Pesa.

Collymore said Zuckerberg, who is Facebook co-founder and CEO, could hire developers and build a payment platform if he really wanted a facility like M-Pesa.

“Somebody made it up. It is just an Internet story,” he told said.

“I was supposed to meet him but I could not because I was in a Safaricom board meeting.”

A number of tech blogs reported on Thursday that Facebook was planning to buy Safaricom’s mobile money transfer service.

Zuckerberg toured iHub and met with ICT CS Joe Mucheru and PS Victor Kyalo during his surprise visit to Kenya last week.

The 32-year-old Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist pointed out that his mission was to meet with entrepreneurs and developers and learn about M-Pesa.