Kenya’s money transfer service M-pesa is now in the UAE courtesy to a partnership between Xpress Money and M-pesa that will also rope in residents in the UK for a safe, fast and inexpensive platform of sending money.
With the partnership, residents of the UAEwill send money to Kenya at a fee of at Kshs. 350 while those living in the UK will send money at a fee of Kshs 440.
Betty Mwangi-Thuo, GM for Financial Services, Safaricom said: “Kenya received over Kshs 100 billion in diaspora remittances in 2013 making it Kenya’s fourth largest source of foreign exchange. Safaricom seeks to provide subscribers with cost-effective and innovative systems that save them time and impact lives positively.”
Sudhesh Giriyan, VP and business head, Xpress Money said: “Kenyans are looking for innovative products and services that will make their lives easier and this partnership with Safaricom is a step that direction. Today an Xpress Money customer can just walk into one of our service locations and ask to send money to Kenya using the M-PESA service and their receivers will get the money on their mobile phone with zero hassle.”
The M-PESA service on Xpress Money channels will be rolled out in a phases with UK, UAE,Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the first phase .
The subsequent phases will have the service going live from other countries under the Xpress Money network and will be concluded by the end of 2014.