NEW MPESA TRANSACTION CHARGES FEE.

M-Pesa customers will incur lower cost while transferring funds from one line to another starting January 1, 2021.

This is after telecommunication giants, Safaricom reduced M-Pesa transfer costs by up to 45 per cent ahead of the end of the waiver on free cash transfers below Ksh.1000.

In a new pricing structure submitted to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), new costs of sending amounts between Ksh.501 and Ksh.1000 among M-Pesa customers will be Ksh11 down from Ksh.15.

At the same time, sending amounts between Ksh101 and Ksh500 will now cost customers Ksh6 from the previous Ksh.11.

The lower charges are set to benefit lower value transaction as the telco largely retains fees of sending higher sums over its M-Pesa platform.

Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said the lower charges will benefit the majority of customers since the low value transactions account to up to 90 per cent of the company’s overall transactions.

“These tariff reductions will affect more than 90 per cent of all customer transactions when sending money. The price cuts are permanent, effective from January 1, 2021 and will enable more than 26.8 million customers to continue enjoying lower costs whenever they send money,” said Peter Ndegwa.

The cost of withdrawing funds from M-Pesa agents will however remain unchanged.

This comes barely a week after CBK announced the end of free mobile money transfers of amounts of Ksh1000 and below.

Source: Kenya herald