Safaricom has launched an eight-week consumer and merchant promotion to encourage the use of M-Pesa for retail transactions. Under the promo, eight lucky customers will win fully furnished houses worth Ksh12 million each and merchants a pick-up every two weeks besides Ksh40 milllion in cash.
The promotion is aime at encouraging more users to embrace its Lipa Na M-Pesa cashless transaction service, said Ms Betty Mwangi, Safaricom General Manager, Financial Services during the launch earlier today. “It is not lost on us that 94% of transactions in Kenya are in cash and we feel that there is an immense opportunity for the number of cashless transactions to grow. We have already made investments in the public sector and in government transactions, which we believe are the next growth frontiers for Lipa Na M-Pesa,” said Ms Mwangi.
A McKinsey study recenlty found out that nine out of ten payments in Kenya are still made in cash. However, growing evidence reveals that cashless services like M-Pesa have overtaken the volume of transactions registered through debit and credit cards.
“A majority of our registered M-Pesa cucstomers already use the service to make person-to-person transactions. With this initiative we aim at encouraging them to also enjoy the additional benefits and convenience derived from additional value added services available on M-Pesa,” said Ms Mwangi.
Besides owning the houses, customers stand to win Ksh32 million in cash and Ksh 16 million worth of airtime. To qualify, customers will need to use Lipa Na M-Pesa to pay for goods and services, move money between their mobile phones and their banks and/or Saccos or take M-Shwari loans during the two months of the promotion.
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