NAIROBI – Safaricom has stepped up competition in mobile money transfer services by drastically lowering transaction amount limits and transfer fees on its M-Pesa service.
The company said today M-PESA customers will be able to send and receive amounts as low as Sh10 from the previous limit of Sh50, with charges for transfers within this band pegged at Sh3, a clear shift towards the small but numerous transactions in the lower end of the mark, countering its rival Airtel which charges a flat-rate of Sh10.
M-PESA customers can also now make micro-payments from as low as Sh10 to Sh49 per month. This is the first major review since the product was launched in March 2007.
“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,” said CEO Bob Collymore.
“We are particularly conscious of the fact that about 7 in 10 adults in Kenya now have access to some form of mobile money service and as the pioneers in this space, we have a specific role to ensure that our service remains affordable to everyone.”
Safaricom has also lowered the transaction fees for its Sh101 and Sh500 value band which it says accounts for over a quarter of all the transactions on the M-PESA platform, from Sh30 to Sh25, in a move aimed at tapping more transactions within this category.
In a statement, Safaricom has indicated that it did want to punish Kenyans for transacting less. The M-PESA tariff review also sees the introduction of 11 new tariff bands in a bid to rationalise the previous disparities between transaction amounts and charges levied for the same.
“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,” he added. “ 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.”
