Kenya’s top mobile operator Safaricom and Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) have partnered to launch M-Shwari a service that will allow M-PESA users to borrow or save money from their mobile phones.
M-Shwari is free for M-PESA subscribers who have been regular users of the firms other services for at least six months. M-Shwari works with the M-PESA account and targets the lower-income bracket who can save from Ksh1 and borrow at 7.5 percent amounts up to Ksh100,000.
The new electronic accounts will be processed by CBA which also handles M-PESA transactions but will not need any physical visits to the banking halls.
The service launched yesterday has not been done hastily.
The two firms say M-Shwari has been in incubation for five years and has all details of both Kenyans and foreigners living in the country as the service has access to the Ministry of Immigration’s Integrated Population Registration System (IPRS) database which has passport details, NHIF, NSSF and KRA tax numbers.
