M-PESA is a key moneymaker for telco Safaricom. The mobile operator has, over time, added key innovations on top of what the financial product already offers, including the ability to pay bills for thousands, perhaps millions of services.
As of today, people interested in bills and payments services should be happy to know that the carrier has launched a self-help portal that should make the entire exercise of applying for and acquiring a PayBill number a seamless and fast exercise.
According to Safaricom, customers can now get a short-term PayBill service in under 24 hours for emergencies such as a wedding plan that needs financial contributions from friends and family, hospital bills, funerals, and charity, to mention a few.
“We have gone digital, our new self-service portal is live. You can now apply and get a short term pay bill for medical, funeral, wedding or charity contributions online. No more hustle or stress when every second counts, no need to call our customer care or visit a retail shop,” reads a statement from the carrier.
Available here, the portal is self-explanatory, and highlights are the documents required for the application process.
Before this development, customers who wanted a short-term PayBill number had to download an application form and populate it offline before submitting it to a Safaricom shop for approval.
It should also be noted that the carrier has not said anything about long-term, business PayBill numbers that require additional documents for processing and issuance, hence the activity, while cumbersome and time-consuming, will remain as before.
