Safaricom has announced a very interesting service today. It is called Daima, and seeks to ensure that people who travel outside of the country (Kenya), or those who want to keep their numbers active even after the 90-day inactivity period elapses, are able to do so at a small fee.
This makes a lot of sense because there have been complaints that Safaricom usually releases inactive numbers back to the market. This happens for people who have since passed away, or live abroad but are unable to keep their numbers active by topping them up with airtime.
Daima costs KES 200 for six months or KES 500 for one year. You can pay for a two-year period at KES 1000.
When it goes live in the following weeks, it will be accessed through *100*4# (My Account) and then choosing ‘Daima’ (keep line active), which is option 9.
It should also be noted that this development comes at a time when telcos are aggressively trying to retain their customers by sensitizing them to re-confirm their SIM details. The deadline (October 15, 2022) has since elapsed, but the ICT regulator the Communications Authority of Kenya ‘extended’ the deadline, again, by another sixty days. This should give telcos and unregistered customers sufficient time to wrap up the SIM registration process.
So far, Safaricom leads in terms of registration compliance at 91 percent, followed y Airtel at 48 percent. Telkom Kenya has not registered 60 percent of its customers.
READ MORE: How to Re-activate a SIM Card That Has Been Switched Off
Safaricom also says that it has since done the same thing in the Ethiopian market. Any customer who purchases a SIM card in Ethiopia is registered fully, which includes taking their biometric information.
These developments were announced today by Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa, who held a one-on-one meeting with the media and social media influencers. The CEO also mentioned that there are a lot of products under the telco’s sleeve, and we should be hearing about them in the coming months. Some of them include additional services beyond payments for M-PESA. There are also chances that the telco will look into its M-PESA pricing, bearing in mind that there have been a lot of complaints that it charges a little bit too much for amounts under KES 1000.
Its investment platform Mali will also go live sometime in the future, following a license issuance by the CBK.
We will be informing you of any announcements in the coming days.
