- Safaricom has reduced paybill charges and business-to-customer tariffs
- The company said they had reduced bank to M-PESA charges by an average of 61%
- Safaricom has also reduced M-PESA to Bank charges by an average of 47%
Safaricom has reduced paybill charges and business-to-customer tariffs. On December 16, 2022, the Kenyan telecommunication company said they had reduced bank to M-PESA charges by an average of 61%.
Safaricom has also reduced M-PESA to Bank charges by an average of 47%, and is applicable to customers making M-PESA to bank transactions. Transactions below KSh 100 remain zero-rated.
The reduced M-PESA to Bank tariff will also apply to all M-PESA Paybill payments that customers use for utilities such as electricity, hospital bills, schools and government payments to ensure affordability.
The revised tariffs will be effective starting 1st January 2023.
Why Safaricom has reduced paybill charges
Commenting on the development, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said that in their role to continue supporting the economy and stimulating growth, the company has taken the initiative to reduce the paybill and business-to-customer tariffs.
“This move reaffirms our commitment to support all our customers and enable them to cost effectively get along with their lives, especially when most Kenyans are experiencing hard economic times,” he said.
The revised tariffs have been structured to ensure alignment with the Central Bank of Kenya’s pricing principles on customer centricity; transparency and disclosure; fairness and equity; choice and competition as well as affordability.
Paying to M-PESA paybill from other networks
In a related story, Kenya’s leading telcos recently signed a landmark deal that will propel the mobile money space in the country.
Telkom, Safaricom, and Airtel signed a deal, allowing Kenyans to make direct mobile payments to an M-PESA PayBill number from any network.
The telecommunications companies said the move follows their announcement in April 2022, which saw Kenyans able to make mobile payments to M-PESA Buy Goods and Services Tills from any network.
The objective of the interoperability of Kenya’s mobile money service platforms is to allow Kenyans to make direct mobile money payments to any M-PESA merchant Pay Bill Number and Merchant Tills, from any network, thereby boosting the adoption and convenience of making cashless payments.
The next phase towards complete merchant interoperability will see Kenyans make mobile money payments from
M-PESA to the Till and Pay Bill Numbers of the other networks: Airtel Money and T-kash.
The proposition is also in line with the principles of the National Payments Strategy, 2022 – 2025, launched by the Central Bank of Kenya in February 2022.
The strategy seeks to achieve a secure, fast, efficient and collaborative payments system that supports financial inclusion and innovations that benefit Kenyans through trust, security, usefulness, choice and innovation.
Kenya: M-Pesa starts Ethiopia operations by May 2022
In a separate story, Safaricom recently revamped of its monthly plans that will see its PostPay and All-in-One plans consolidated under the Go Monthly proposition.
The revised pricing will see the Go Monthly 1K plan go for KSh 1,000, down from KhS 1050; the 2K plan will go for KSh 2,000 down from KSh 2,100; the 3K plan will go for KSh 3,000 down from KSh 3,150; the 5K plan will go for KSh 5,000 down from 5,200; while the 10K plan will go for KSh 10,000, down from KSh 10,430.
All Go Monthly customers will get free 2GB YouTube every month, while customers on the 5k and 10k plans will enjoy unlimited data capped at 45GB and 100GB, respectively, after which they will browse at 3Mbps speed. Go Monthly customers can use their minutes to call across all local networks as well as China, India, USA, and Canada.
As part of the revamp, the plans will have a validity of 30 days, and only data will roll over upon renewal of PostPay or purchase of another monthly bundle.
