Kenya’s Diaspora Remittances Show an Upward Trend

The Central Bank of Kenya conducts a survey on remittance inflows every month through the formal channels that include commercial banks and other authorised international remittances service providers in Kenya. Commentary on Remittances for July 2014 Remittances to Kenya increased by 3.8 per cent to USD 117.1 million in July 2014 compared with USD 112.8

Currencies Acceptable in All EAC States

Residents of Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania will now be able to travel with their respective national currencies in other East African Community (EAC) countries and make digital cross-border cash transactions in real time. The new development comes through the just launched East African Community project on Payment and Settlement Systems Integration Programme (PSSIP)

Infographic: Mobile Commerce in Kenya

As global smartphone penetration increases, so does Kenya’s mobile content and commerce activity. The infographic below comes from txtNation, who recently launched their Kenyan mobile billing solution, using Premium SMS. Kenya has seen some of the fastest growth in mobile commerce, with a 97% increase in 2013 and an impressive 77% of internet-enabled mobile phone

MasterCard and Ecobank Announce Multi-country Agreement in 28 Sub-Saharan African Countries

Ecobank Transnational Inc. and MasterCard, have announced a multi-country licensing agreement which will provide access to MasterCard’s electronic payments solutions for Ecobank’s customers in a further 23 African countries. The agreement is the culmination of a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) originally signed in November 2011, and importantly, enables electronic payments access to more than 60%

Ecobank Signs Agreement to Support SME’s with the African Guarantee Fund

The official signing ceremony for a co-operation agreement between Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (“Ecobank”), the leading pan-African banking group, and the African Guarantee Fund (“AGF”) to promote and support small business across Sub-Saharan Africa occurred recently. Under the terms of this USD 50 million agreement, the two institutions will work together to unlock the potential of

Infographic: 23 Million Kenyan Mobile Money Users

The GSMA recently released data showing that there are over 23 million mobile money subscribers in Kenya which is about 74% of the country’s adult population. Mobile money has rapidly  grown from a money transfer system to a payment platform supporting many financial products.   The launch of M-PESA in 2007 was a critical breakthrough that

Safaricom Introduces Service to Pay Rent Through M-Pesa

M-PESA, the flagship brand of the leading integrated communications service provider Safaricom Limited, has introduced a new rent collection and payment service dubbed Lipa Kodi na M-PESA. Under the new scheme, customers will pay Kshs.6 for transactions of upto to Kshs. 5,000 while those paying between Kshs.50, 000 and Kshs.70, 000 will be charged a

Kenya’s Prepaid Electricity Users Prefer Paying with Mobile Money

More than 70% of prepaid electricity users prefer to use their mobile phones to buy electricity tokens than any other outlet, a survey conducted by Kenya Power has revealed. M-Pesa is the most popular facility accounting for 95% of all mobile based prepaid purchases. Kenya Power currently has 340,000 customers on prepaid metering system. The

State Law Office of Kenya Partners with Safaricom for Mobile Payments

The State Law Office of Kenya has entered into a partnership with Safaricom to automate some of its services. The KSh 14 million contract will see Safriacom providing it’s M-Pesa platform for the payment of services such as registration of companies, societies, or weddings. The announcement was made at an event held at the SLO

Postal Corporation of Kenya to Handle all Public Sector Payments

The Kenyan government has put forward a plan to have all public sector payments made through the Postal Corporation of Kenya. This was announced at the launch of Posta Pesa, the corporation’s new Sh84 million e-payment platform. In a bid to keep the postal corporation relevant in an increasingly digital era they are hoping to