At the FT Africa Payments Innovation Summit being held in Nairobi today, Safaricom’s CEO, Bob Collymore has announced that the company is increasing M-Pesa kadogo’s limit from Ksh.100 to Ksh.200 for Lipa Na M-Pesa Buy Goods option. M-Pesa Kadogo which was announced in October 2016, allows customers to transact for free for any amounts below Ksh.100.
This means that for all Buy Goods payment transactions of Ksh.200 and below, the merchant will not be charged. The Lipa Na M-Pesa Buy Goods option has been free for customers but merchants cover the transaction fees. This is therefore good news to merchants with a Lipa Na M-Pesa Till Number.
The M-Pesa Kadogo limit does not extend its gracious arm to the PayBill option, which until now, sees the customer cover the cost of each transaction made via the PayBill option.
Safaricom also announced that they have slashed the merchant tarrifs by 50 percent, in an effort to accommodate SMEs and small businesses. The merchant tariff which previously stood at 1% of the transaction amount, will now be 0.5% of the transaction amount. In addition, Lipa Na M-Pesa (both PayBill and Buy Goods) merchants will be charged a flat fee of Ksh. 200 for any payments above Ksh. 40,000
“We trust that this development will boost the attractiveness of the Lipa Na M-PESA platform to more small and medium enterprises while making the service more affordable compared to other alternatives in the market,” said Bob Collymore.
This new tarrif will be implemented as from April 1st, 2017, along with the new M-Pesa kadogo limits for Lipa Na M-Pesa Buy Goods option.
To fight back, Airtel will be busy pushing for Safaricom to be declared the dominant player and to be broken up instead of bringing real solutions to Kenyans.
The new m-pesa kadogo buy goods limit will be a huge difference maker