Safaricom and CBA have launched a 45-day KSh. 50 million plus consumer promotion running for the next 6 weeks to boost Kenyans savings culture and sign up more customers days after the fall of Chase Bank, a bank mostly known for its SME-centric focus.
The promotion, dubbed Stawisha Na M-Shwari, will boost the savings culture in Kenya which is relatively low and rates at about 12% to 15 % of GDP. The M-Shwari product allows customers to save as little as Kshs 1 and accumulate annual interest at a rate between 2-5 per cent on their savings. In addition, users are able to instantly access their savings.
Sylvia Mulinge, Director – Consumer Business, Safaricom, “The aim of this promotion is to encourage more customers to save on M-Shwari and be rewarded for their financial prudence. The uptake of M-Shwari has so far been amazing but we still see a huge opportunity to bring on board more customers,” she added.
The promotion which kicked off Tuesday will see one winner walk away with a grand prize of Kshs 5Million. There will also be one weekly winner of Kshs 1Million, 50 weekly winners of Kshs 100,000 on M-Shwari deposits of Kshs 50 with no withdrawal during the week and 100 randomly selected customers daily will have their M-Shwari savings doubled during the promotion.
The promotion will reward active customers during the period who have either saved on M-Shwari or Lock Savings account and have fully paid their outstanding loans.
Jeremy Nguze CEO, Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) said, “The Stawisha Na M-Shwari promotion, aims to increase awareness about the product and encourage all our customers to save on M-Shwari and improve their financial well-being in the long term.”
Launched in 2012, M-Shwari offers flexibility to M-PESA users who have reached the KSh. 300,000 limit of what they can keep in M-PESA. Moving funds to M-Shwari enables such users to earn interest on their savings, while enjoying the flexibility to easily move funds back to M-PESA when needed.
M-Shwari has disbursed over of Kshs 90 billion at an average of 50,000 loans processed per day.
