Obama Coming to Kenya This July

US President Barrack Hussein Obama is scheduled to visit Kenya this coming July. Obama will be visiting Kenya for the first time since he was elected to the most powerful  seat in the world, Presidency of the United States of America. President Obama will be in Kenya for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) 

Kenyans are so excited about this visit especially because Obama has his roots in this country. Obama's Father Barrack Obama senior hailed from Siaya and was studying in the US when he met Obama's mother.

The last time president Obama visited Kenya was in 2006 while still a senator for Illinois. Obama has repeatedly skipped Kenya as he visited other countries including neighboring Tanzania. He has also visited South Africa Egypt and Senegal.

The government of Kenya has agreed to co-host The Global Entrepreneurship Summit for 2015. The summit connects emerging entrepreneurs with leaders from Business, International organizations and Governments  looking to support them

Safaricom major changes to it's C-Level Management Sees Peter Arina Replaced by Sylvia Mulinge

Safaricom's General Manager, Consumer business Mr Peter Arina has stepped down from his plum post in a major restructuring communicated via email to all staff by Ceo Bob Collymore. Sylvia Mulinge who was previously General Manager, enterprise business will take over from Peter. Rita Okuthe who is currently director of marketing at Safaricom will fill in Sylvia's position of General Manager, Enterprise Business. Also exiting is director of customer management, ms Pauline Warui. Her place will be taken by the current retail network boss, Janet Atika. Safaricom's CEO Bob Collymore said that the changes were brought about by a need to reconnect afresh with the Customers. Mr Arina has worked at Safaricom for 11 years whereas Ms Warui has given 7 years service to the giant Telco. Collymore said the changes have been necessitated by an appreciation that Safaricom as a business had become disconnected to the customer needs at various levels. Collymore congratulated the two outgoing senior Managers for their exemplary services. These Changes Collymore said will prepare the Company for the heightened competitive environment.

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 It is very interesting to see that Safaricom is gender sensitive and is encouraging women to take top management jobs.

M-PESA TO FEEL THE HEAT FROM FACEBOOK PAYMENT SERVICE

A new payment service soon to be launched by Facebook is threatening to shake the very foundations of M-PESA in terms of payments options that it will offer Facebook users. A recent research by Standard Investment Bank revealed that the new payment service by Facebook might eat up on MPESA profits and future growth of the giant mobile money company. But Safaricom's Corporate Affairs Director Nzioka Waita in an interview strongly refuted this. Nzioka says that since the service will only be enabled to users in the US at first, the impact will not be felt by Kenyans who are the biggest consumers of MPESA services. MPESA has a current subscriber base of 20 million users while Facebook only reaches 4 million Kenyans.
Facebook announced that the new payment feature will be added to the messenger to allow people send money direct to each other. The service will be available on android and iOS messanger apps.
M-PESA currently has  network of over 40,000 agents across Kenyan who have helped grow the mobile money service in leaps and bounds. M-PESA was launched in Kenya in 2007 first offering only mobile money transfer services but has in recent years evolved into a full payments services offering C2B services and par

tnering with Major Banks to offer B2C services,.

How To Get a KCB MPESA account and borrow Cash Instantly

Now MPESA and KCB have launched a super wonderful mobile banking product dubbed MPESA KCB. This was launched on 10th of March 2015 and already it is proving to be a revolutionary product that might just unseat Mshwari from it's current dominance.

How does one open an account and borrow cash?

First dial *811# on your Safaricom line

You will be taken to a menu welcoming you to KCB MPESA account with an option of 1 accept terms and conditions or 2. dont accept . a link is provided( not to follow but read from the internet www.kcbbankgroup.com) majority of the customers might be using simple phones without internet so they may have to access the terms and conditions later.

once you accept the terms and conditions you will be sent a one time pin which you will be rquested to change to a preferred pin.

After that the full menu will be available for you and you can borrow as much as 5,000 shillings on day one!! just like that!!!

This product is bound to shake the whole mobile banking industry. Some years back when Safaricom introduced the OKOA JAHAZI product, according to the then CEO Michael Joseph they made a whooping 5 million shillings on day one just from word of mouth of subscribers.

Of course there is a high risk of defaulters but the pros supercede the cons by way too far. Depending on your MPESA transaction history KCB MPESA will decide whether to approve your loan request or reject it. Well Michael Joseph once reffered to Kenyans peculiar calling habits, will they be peculiar borrowing habits?

Safaricom's MPESA sign deal with KCB to boost mobile loans

Just slightly over two years since Safaricom partnered with CBA bank to launch M-shwari mobile based savings and loans service, they have entered into yet another such partnership this time with KCB.Mshwari was an instant success offering loans of up to Ksh 5,000 but later reviewed that to Ksh 8,000. The new KCB Mpesa mobile banking service offers loans at between four percent to 12 percent.

The Mobile credit service was launched  on 10th March 2015 and will offer customers loans of  between kes 50 and kes 1,000,000 payable in one to six months. Mobile banking has become a cut throat field with banks going for the jagular in this very competitive and lucrative arena. KCB has announced that transactions had moved from 10,000 daily to 100,000 transactions and transaction amounts hitting the 125 billion mark last year. Recently Bill gates lauded MPESA for bridging the gap between the haves and have nots, the banked and unbanked. 

CBA announced that it gives upto 50,000 loans a day. Currently due to that statistic its savings account stands at 153 billion and its loan account at 29 billion. CBA recently hit the 10 million mark in customer base.

In an interview with Citizen business Center presenter Terryanne Chebet, the CEOs of the two Corporates Bob Collymore Safaricom and Joshua Oigara who is group ceo KCB shied away from the all too common question of revenue share. However Bob did say that since KCB are taking the risk and Safaricom providing the technology, KCB was taking home the Lion share.
Lately banks have been running to MNOs for margers in mobile banking solutions that have brought about financial inclusion to the critical mass.
Safaricom has already been in three partnerships of Convenience. First with Equity bank when they first launched the MKESHO mobile banking service. Unfortunately it did not las long because the two parties did not agree on a revenue share model. Safaricom later shifted gear and partnered with CBA bank for the MSHWARI mobile banking service. This was an instance success. KCB MPESA is the latest Partnership that Safaricom has entered into, this time with KCB bank.

Safaricom Counters Airtel Unliminet with Crazy Internet Offers

Safaricom limited is not going to stand and watch it's subscribers make a switch to rival Airtel with it's unliminernet offer. Safaricom has come up with crazy internet bundles offer to counter the rival's recent campaign. Ironically. both networks are using the same USSD code to *544# to on board subscribers. Currently Safaricom controls 70% of data market and that is just the way they want it to remain if not higher. Below is the new data structure for safaricom

DAILY BUNDLES

OFF-PEAK (10pm-6am)

SMS

Price

5MB

5MB

5SMS

5

12MB

12MB

12SMS

10

25MB

25MB

25SMS

20

50MB

50MB

50SMS

30

100MB

100MB

100SMS

40

WEEKLY BUNDLES

OFF-PEAK (10pm-6am)

SMS

Price

4MB

4MB

-

5

10MB

10MB

-

10

30MB

30MB

-

25

65MB

65MB

-

50

MONTHLY BUNDLES

OFF-PEAK(10pm-6am)

SMS

Price

100MB

100MB

-

100

300MB

300MB

-

250

650MB

650MB

-

500

2GB

2GB

-

1000

5GB

5GB

-

2000

10GB

10GB

-

3000

25GB

25GB

-

5750

50GB

50GB

-

6750

POWER BUNDLE/OFF-PEAK - 10PM - 6AM)