The Central Bank of Kenya has today announced that they will extend the measures they put on mobile money transactions that they announced back in March.
Back in March, the Central Bank of Kenya removed charges for mobile money transactions upto Kshs 1000 and the withdrawal of money between bank accounts and mobile money wallets.
Today they have announced that these emergency measures that were made due to the COVID-19 epidemic will remain in place from July 1st 2020 until December 31st 2020. The deadline for the current system was to expire at the end of the month.
CBK says that in line with this measures:
- There will be no charge for mobile money transactions upto Kshs 1000
- The current tarrif for transactions above Kshs 70,000 will remain
- There will be no charge by Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and commercial banks for transfers between mobile money wallets and bank accounts.
The CBK found out there was a “significant increase” in the use of mobile money channels by individuals. They found out that most of the increase was in low-value transactions of Kshs 1,000 or less, which account for over 80% of mobile money transactions.
They also noted that an additional 1.6 million people are now using mobile money channels, which is quite interesting. However, business related transactions declined marginally, but they did not give more details about that.
The Central Bank implemented these measures 3 months ago to increase the use of mobile money transactions instead of cash. In their own words, they said that these measures were “timely and highly effective in facilitating official and personal transfers at a time of great need.”
The Central Bank was quick to note that they will continue to monitor the implementation of these emergency measures.
