Paying with Safaricom’s M-Pesa at any POS used to be a pain as the process took longer than shopping itself but Safaricom is revolutionizing mobile money payments with today’s launch of M-PESA One Tap to reduce the steps to one altogether.
“We realize that the simplest M-PESA transactions can take up to eight steps to complete,” said Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore whose contract has been extended for another two years. “This is why I am proud to announce that today we are launching an exciting new product that will greatly enhance the M-PESA experience. M-PESA One Tap will reduce the number of steps that a customer must undertake to pay for goods or services from the current eight steps to just one tap.”
According to the firm One Tap will supplement a number of recent initiatives the firm has undertaken to expand the M-PESA ecosystem in the last year. Recently implemented a 50% tariff reduction for all Lipa Na M-PESA Buy Goods merchant fees which means Lipa Na M-PESA merchants are now charged a maximum of 0.5% of the transaction amount, down from the previous maximum of 1%.
To make payments, customers will tap their cards, wristbands or stickers on an M-PESA 1 Tap Point of Sale terminal (POS), and enter their PIN on their phone to confirm and complete the payment.
M-PESA customers will also benefit from a higher level of privacy as they can now complete Lipa Na M-PESA payments without having to show confirmation messages as has been the case in some instances. In addition, the solution will reduce errors that occur when payments are made to unintended Till Numbers.
In line with the current practice, customers will continue making Lipa Na M-PESA Buy Goods transactions with M-PESA 1 Tap at no cost, with the exception of petrol station tariffs, betting and Pay Bills. Retailers purchasing from wholesalers will also maintain their current Buy Goods Distributor tariff.
Merchants across the country will be issued with M-PESA 1 Tap Point of Sale terminals in line with the phased roll out. Both customers and merchants will be issued with M-PESA 1 Tap payment devices and two subsequent replacement will be free.
The launch of M-PESA 1 Tap comes on the heels of the recent reduction by half of Lipa Na M-PESA Buy Goods merchant tariffs. Safaricom also announced the expansion of M-PESA Kadogo to Lipa Na M-PESA Buy Goods, eliminating merchant charges for all Lipa Na M-PESA Buy Goods transactions of Sh200 and below.
The number of Lipa Na M-PESA transactions grew from half that of person-to-person M-PESA transactions in 2015/2016 to equal the latter in the six months to September 2016.
Safaricom also recently introduced instant processing of payments to bank accounts for Lipa Na M-PESA merchants through partnerships with 23 participating banks.
Launched 10 years ago, M-PESA remains mostly confined to the SMS and USSD experience and Safaricom has continuously built its M-PESA platform to tap into the various needs of Kenyans – introducing services like savings, loans, payments for goods or services, international transfers and much, much more.
The recently launched Safaricom M-PESA App last week welcomed its one millionth customer while 5 million customers have signed up for My Data Manager, which allows them to manage their internet use more effectively. There are over 2 million customers through My Subscriptions Manager, which allows customers to administer their value added services subscriptions. Safaricom also added 500 jobs and will soon add another 271 to increase its customer care workforce.
Safaricom’s Bonga Popote, which allows customers to use points to buy food, petrol or to shop at supermarkets saw Sh50 million redeemed through it while the overall Bonga saw Sh2.3 billion redeemed last year.
