Kenyans may soon pay far less to send money by phone as the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) moves to cap the charges on person-to-person transfers.
The regulator argues that the high cost of sending money through services like M-Pesa and Airtel Money has slowed the growth of mobile payments.
It says most Kenyans still use mobile money for simple cash transfers, with few taking up other digital products such as loans, savings or insurance.
The plan is part of the new Kenya National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2025 to 2028. CBK hopes to cut the average cost of a mobile money transaction from about Ksh 23 in 2024 to just 10 shillings by 2028.
Some Kenyans now pay as much as 6.9 per cent of the amount they send, a cost that is often higher than what banks charge for similar transactions. CBK believes such steep fees have kept millions from making fuller use of digital finance.
In a statement, the bank said that mobile money remains the single most transformative tool for financial inclusion, but warned that pricing, limited interoperability and poorly designed products have held back its potential.
M-Pesa, owned by Safaricom, controls more than 90 per cent of the market. Personal cash transfers account for nearly 40 per cent of its revenue, meaning fee caps could eat into its earnings.
The regulator insists that the push for lower fees is not about hurting businesses but about ensuring that digital payments serve everyone. It wants telecom operators and Parliament to back new rules that will make pricing more transparent and fair.
Kenya’s mobile money story shows how powerful the service can be. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBK temporarily scrapped charges on transfers below Ksh 1,000. Active users jumped by more than 6.2 million, while monthly person-to-person transactions rose from 162 million to 440 million. The value of these transactions grew from Ksh 234 billion to 399 billion.
Although fees returned in 2023, they remain lower than they were before the pandemic.
Today, Kenya has 47.7 million mobile money subscriptions, covering 91 per cent of the population. The CBK says the next phase is to make mobile money more affordable and to keep it a tool that closes the gap between the banked and the unbanked.
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