There is a new, easy and convenient way for parents to send their children pocket money. This is through PesaCard, a smart card that enables students to receive money sent from their parents’ mobile phones.
PesaCard is an innovation of Kenya’s Card Planet Solutions, which is a smart card payment start-up founded in 2012 by George Muhandi and Samuel Masinde. This innovation targets students in boarding schools.
Given that students are generally not allowed to use mobile phones in schools, they cannot benefit from mobile money transfer services like M-Pesa. Parents are forced to give them cash for their upkeep, which can easily be stolen or misused. This card has been in the market for about a month with Nakuru Girls High School as one of its earliest clients.
The PesaCard has come in handy in the school as students now use it at the canteen, which has a PesaCard point of Sale and Near Field Communication System (NFC). Just like the ATM cards, PesaCards are PIN protected and give students a secure way of keeping money.
Both parents and students have to be registered on the system. Each parent has an account linked to his or her mobile phone number while each student is issued with an NFC smartcard and PIN number linked to their parents account number. The parent’s puts money into their mobile money account then transfers it to the child’s PesaCard via SMS.The student can then make payments for goods or services at a PesaCard-enabled NFC or POS terminal.
PesaCard also has a web-based application that allows the school canteen or parent to register and manage the system or check card balances. The card bears the the details of the student and can also be used as a school identification card.Students are charged a minimal fee for the card and parents pay to load the cards.
The involved school pays nothing to have the system deployed. Students use the PesaCard free of charge as as it has no transaction fees. Card Planet is seeking further funding to roll out the service to more schools. The goal is to have a cashless society through electronic money solutions.
