Jijini Markets is a new site I stumbled on that compares Kenya financial products.
Jijini Markets screenshot
The rates are quite good and up to date E.g. just compared the ones for 3-month fixed deposits at various banks. Here’s hoping they expand their product range into other areas like telephone rates, credit cards, mortgages and enable loan rate comparisons at different banks using APR.
Today brought an announcement that Safaricom’s M-Pesa customers in Kenya would now be able to send and receive payments with mobile money customers of Vodacom in Tanzania – enabling true cross border payments to take place between mobile companies in the two countries.
A sample transaction today shows how it works:
Assumptions
Sending Mpesa from Kenya to Tanzania
Sending Mpesa from Tanzania to Kenya
The transactions takes a few minutes to effect, but they actually work and it seems, for now, that there’s very little margin being made on the exchange rate, while the remittance / transaction charges are in line with in-country transactions.
This comes a few weeks after Tanzania enabled cross network mobile payments, which were endorsed by their main mobile money companies – Tigo (Milicom), Airtel, Zantel and Vodacom.
Safaricom, the mobile money market leader with M-Pesa with 19 million customers has partnerships with 30 banks and 160 financial institutions as per their 2014 annual report that notes The new (API) platform (launched in January 2014) helped streamline operations for businesses that disburse staff salaries through M-PESA, as well as those that receive payments through M-PESA and need to move cash to their bank accounts on a regular basis.
It seems to very convenient to link your bank to your mobile money account – so that you can top-up your mobile money account. More so when you really need it in an emergency, or late at night or when on the road far away from any mobile money agent – but with just a few clicks on your phone, you get the cash you need to facilitate whatever need.
But there are some issues to consider about having the convenience of drawing cash from your bank account sraight on to your phone.
1. It drains savings. Looking at my M-Pesa statement at the Selfcare page on the Safaricom site, most of the activity that I use M-Pesa for is for payments out. All deposits are made with a purpose, usually to pay out a corresponding amount soon after either as remittance, utility bills, airtime, meals, repairs etc. It is easier to pay out money than build savings, and there are few savings options like M-Shwari, compared to the hundreds of expense item ones.
2. It is costly, with banks charging about $1 (Kshs 75-250) for customers to tap their phones and do the transfer from bank to mobile money. It costs much less, or is free to withdrawal cash from a bank ATM and deposit it at a mobile money agent.
3. Customers inevitably have things go wrong with their bank accounts – from misplaced funds to banks changing their terms or costs. What is a transaction fails? or money is sent to the wrong payee? Who do you complain to? You’re better off dealing with customer service at one or the other, but not at both a mobile company and a bank
4. Banks may have less trust than telcos in terms of being custodians of small amounts of funds.
.. if you leave Kshs 1,000 (~$12) in your M-Pesa account it will be there until you use it, with no phantom charges eating it away (it won’t stay in your phone for 6 months). But if you leave the same Kshs 1,000 in your bank account for a few months, the money will be exhausted by various tariffs like ledger fees, dormant account fees, minimum balance fees and the account will be drained out and shut down.
5. Banks change their terms and conditions too often. M-Pesa tariffs were revised again this week after almost two years in a very public way. Yet banks make several changes and don’t even inform customers till they see they stumble on new charges on their statements, or go to the bank and find that a service has been cancelled or changed.
Ten years after NIC pioneered a revolutionary flat fee banking model, they have now launched Move To Now a banking model that makes time-consuming banking experiences more convenient for any customer who can use a computer or smart device. This is represented in faster decision making, likes asset finance loan approval decisions which NIC delivers within 12 hours of application that can also be placed at various local vehicle dealers.
At an event this week, the Group Managing Director and his team highlighted four of the features of MovetoNow including online account opening, online banking, a mobile app and online cheque deposits – all of which can be done without having to visit a bank branch, whether for existing or new customers.
Notably, the accounts are in two types; one being a transactional (pay as you go) model that charges Kshs 30/= per activity done by a customer, or a flat fee of Kshs 800 ($9.41) per month for a bouquet of products. The NIC app has all the features of the online platform as well as others like traffic cameras, movie listings, and the ability to make KRA enquiries and payments.
At the launch of M-Shwari in 2012, the then Immigration Minister spoke of an online platform that banks could access to immediately confirm identities of citizen identity/registration documents and this seems to be what has enabled banks to offer account opening verification by phone.