Charges for Sending Money from Bank to M-PESA Effective 2023

A couple of days ago, we learned that the CBK was in the process of reinstating bank to mobile money charges, and vice versa.

The move was lobbied by mobile money operators led by Safaricom because they were losing substantial revenue from the fact that customers could send money from their banks to mobile money wallets for free.

The directive, which was put in place by the CBK back in 2020 April and at the start of the pandemic, also saw banks benefit thanks to increased activity on their platforms.

Some changes are, however, going to be made before the charges roll in starting January 1, 2023. For instance, the charges have been reduced substantially.

Also, telcos have been asked to issue tariffs for the same, and the first carrier to do so is Safaricom.

If you look at the new charges, you will notice they are not so bad actually. We think that customers will continue using their banks to send money to M-PESA considering it will be cheaper that way than M-PESA to M-PESA.

Nonetheless, here are the new charges:

Min band in KES	Max band in KES	Current B2C tariff in KES	New B2C tariff in KES
1	100	15.27	0
101	1,500	15.27	5
1,501	5,000	22.4	8
5,001	20,000	22.4	10
20,001	150,000	22.4	12

Safaricom has also reduced the charges for paybill transactions, which you can read about here.

Quote

“In our role to continue supporting the economy and stimulating growth, we have taken the initiative to reduce significantly our paybill and business-to-customer tariffs. This move reaffirms our commitment to support all our customers and enable them cost-effectively get along with their lives, especially at this time when most Kenyans are experiencing hard economic times,” said Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa.