Mobile money transactions hit 7 billion shillings daily mark

Mobile money transactions hit the 7 billion mark per day in October 2015. These transactions have been majorly enabled by Mpesa, Safaricom's mobile money transfer brand.. This signals a bright future for Africa's Mobile payments industry. Stakeholders are bracing for a massive growth going into 2015 mainly because of the acceptance by more sectors of the economy. Safaricom who owns nearly 80% of the market share attributes the spike in transactions and mobile money payments to an increase in agents who are cashing in to reap some profits.
The banking sector is increasingly embracing mobile money and customers can now pay straight from their accounts through MPESA. Paying of utility bills has never been easier. More merchants have also embraced this new technology. Safaricom says that a record 32 thousand merchants are now connected and receiving payments via mobile money. Mobile transactions rose to 210 billion shillings in October up from 206 billion shillings the previous month.
The uptake of mobile money transactions and payments has seen a drop in card payments. Cards payments stood at sh 104 billion from January till October which is a drop from 129 billion shillings recorded last year same period. Visa MasterCard has gone full throttle in marketing their cashless payment mode on print and electronic media. Other players deep in the fight for market share for the payments business are Jambopay ,Equity Bank with their flagship payments brand Equitel, Mobicash, Tangaza and the list goes on and on. Africans are embracing the mobile payments phenomenon at a good rate even though the large percentage are still stuck to cash. Converting the hard cash users to mobile payments ambassadors will be the win for the stake holders in this industry.

How Mobile Payments are Creating Convenience in Consumer and merchants Transactions

Since the advent of the mobile  phone a lot has happened in terms of making life easy for consumers. Initially the mobile phone was used only for making and receiving calls. At the turn of the century however the mobile phone has revolutionized a lot and made life easy for millions of consumers. Mobile payments and merchant accounts settlement is the craze now. With  a big percentage of consumers owning mobile phones the divide between merchants and consumers has been bridged. Mobile is the easiest and most reliable form of payment to any connected merchant.

Safaricom, Kenya’s top mobile network operator has recently g

one full throttle to drive mobile payments usage. The Mobile operator is giving away eight houses to its subscribers. Mobile users who pay for their bills using the mobile money platform, MPESA stand a chance to win good prizes.

Safaricom powered 22.5 Million dollars worth of transactions. With 32,000 merchants doing an average of 10 dollars worth of transactions on its ecosystem and millions of mobile payments, Safaricom is unarguably the biggest force to reckon with in the region. With 19.5 million users Mpesa offers the leading form of cashless payments second only to cards payments in Africa.

Solo payments a company that offers kiosks for merchants to receive their payments also has an aggressive campaign to drive merchants payments solutions in Africa. Although it is not a mobile form of payment solution it has an ambitious plan of acquiring multiple merchants onto its ecosystem. Currently one can pay for one of the major pay tv and purchase airtime in addition to buying electricity tokens. If solo get intergrated with Safaricom’s MPESA then they will have exposed themselves to 19.5 million mobile money users and that will drive usage for them. However mobile still remains the most potent form of payment since mobile is closest to users than anything else

WHICH WAY FOR THE ELUSIVE MOBILE CASHLESS PAYMENTS

A cashless mobile fare payment for commuter vehicles is something that has continued to elude the stakeholders for a long time in Kenya. Every time the system is set to be launched something comes up that hinders the payments process. Recently Kenya’s own president launched a payments card dubbed 1963. Several Commuters Sacco’s just a tip of Kenya’s commuter industry had put pen to paper endorsing the cashless payments system. Commuters were set to start using the system to ease the problem of having to carry hard cash. The government together with Kenya’s no. 1 Mobile Network Operator Safaricom Ltd was set to gain millions in the deal.

Previously, a few months ago Equity bank had launched their card dubbed Bebapay powered by the Google wallet. Equity bank is Kenya’s biggest bank by customer base having a total of eight million customers. Recently Equity bank has been embroiled in a supremacy battle with Kenya’s top MNO Safaricom when Equity acquired an MVNO license from the communication Authority of Kenya. With the thin sim technology equity aims to offer mobile money transfer to its eight million customers. Of course Safaricom was not taki

ng this lying down. Already with seventeen million active mobile money users through the giant MPESA service Equity poses a threat to Safaricom. It is not a wonder then that Safaricom would launch its 1963 card just a few months after Equity bank’s Google Bebapay.

Another of Kenya’s top banks KCB is not being left behind. They have launched their own cashless payments cards dubbed PepeaCard. Apart from cashless mobile payments KCB’s Pepea card also offers other services like shopping, withdrawing cash and redeeming loyalty points.

With all these, what is causing a snag in cashless payments? For one most of the commuter operators are not ready. The drivers and their assistants insist on hard cash payments until a later date. They claim that the digital cashless payments system should be implemented gradually. Some commuters who are ready should start paying cashless using the cards while those not ready continue using hard cash.

The NTSA National Transport and Safety Authority should hold intensive campaigns of educating the stakeholders before setting the ground rules. Right now the NTSA say that failure to adhere to the new payments system will attract a fine of a hundred thousand shillings (One thousand dollars) or one year jail term

After all is said and done Cashless mobile payments is something that we cannot ignore. It will be like the proverbial ostrich burying head in sand. The rest of the world has embraced mobile payments and Kenya being a pioneer in mobile technology through MPESA should be in the front row in going cashless. Last year alone a total of two trillion shillings was transacted through MPESA.

Already MPESA is powering millions of payments through Lipa Na Mpesa paybill service daily. The stage is set for digital mobile payments……… Lets go digital, Lets go Mobile.