A little over a year ago, Safaricom launched its self-help utility app, mySafarciom. It brought a substantial amount of features to the table, including the ability to perform M-PESA transactions at a go. While the initial offerings for M-PESA were limited to sending and receiving cash, iterative updates have catapulted the app to new heights as we highlighted on this post. As a recap, users could not access M-Shwari and KCB M-PESA services, a deal breaker for a some. However, this was fixed with its last major update, and that is a good thing.
Today’s update introduces a cost calculator for M-PESA transactions. This, in my opinion, is a critical inclusion as previous calculations were done using a number of apps in the Play Store for Android users (some of which have not been updated to reflect new fees). Nonetheless, users can have quick access to this feature to determine the amount of cash they should remit to people or services.
I have had issues with estimating charging fees for a myriad of Lipa na M-PESA product for some time now. Some of my frequent services such as Branch are used blindly, especially when making partial payments. A cost calculator corrects this concern. Also, its implementation is better and includes frequently used Lipa n M-PESA services in your address book and a catalog that can be searched. Neat.
It should be noted this update does not replace what Safaricom’s M-Ledger app does. Both have a cost calculator now, but the latter brought it first long before mySafaricom was conceptualized. Where M-Ledger has an upper hand is backing up/restoring transactions to the cloud, and activity tabs that provides a summary by business or person contacted, a timeline of how much a user transacts and top 20 persons/services used.
At this rate, I wouldn’t surprised if M-Ledger features are ported over to mySafricom in the future. It would also make sense to have multiple products and services under a single umbrella for ease of management and support.
