Safaricom is widely recognized as the company behind M-Pesa and with the increasing talk about upcoming mobile money products, it is leaving no stones upturned to endear its product to its customers.
Effective today, 1st of March, it lowered minimum M-Pesa transaction amount and fees. M-Pesa customers will now be able to send and receive amounts as low as Kshs10 against a previous limit of Kshs50, with charges for transfers within this band pegged at Kshs3. Safaricom also lowered the transaction fees for its Kshs101 and Kshs500 value band. This band has been recognised to account for a quarter of all transactions on the M-Pesa platform and therefore reduced the fee from Kshs30 to Kshs25.
The operator has also introduced 11 new tariff bands in this new tariff regime.
Though it reduced the minimum transaction amounts and fees, it increased the fees for bigger amounts. Hitherto, users paid a flat-rate of Kshs30 to send money of between Kshs100 to Kshs35,000. In the new dispensation, users will now incur a fee of Kshs50 to send Kshs5,000. For a registered M-Pesa user, to withdraw Kshs5,000, (s)he will have to pay Kshs60 instead of the previous charge of Kshs45. If you want to withdraw amounts between Kshs7501 and Kshs10,000, you will now have to pay Kshs100 instead of Kshs75
Safaricom's boss, Bob Collymore states "It was very clear to us when we undertook this tariff review that we were in a unique position to extend the benefits of financial inclusion to more Kenyans, particularly those in lower income groups who rely very heavily on our service." He goes on to say "The good news is that we have introduced lower charges for smaller transactions but at the same time we have had to increase the charges levied on the bigger amounts being transferred. This is motivated, in large part, by the need to give greater incentives to our growing agent network to embrace higher value transactions, while improving overall efficiency for our customers, particlarly float availability."
This is the first tariff review undertaken by M-Pesa since its launch in March, 2007.
Safaricom's boss, Bob Collymore states "It was very clear to us when we undertook this tariff review that we were in a unique position to extend the benefits of financial inclusion to more Kenyans, particularly those in lower income groups who rely very heavily on our service." He goes on to say "The good news is that we have introduced lower charges for smaller transactions but at the same time we have had to increase the charges levied on the bigger amounts being transferred. This is motivated, in large part, by the need to give greater incentives to our growing agent network to embrace higher value transactions, while improving overall efficiency for our customers, particlarly float availability."
This is the first tariff review undertaken by M-Pesa since its launch in March, 2007.
