VodaCash, in partnership with Access Bank, launched its new service M-Pesa Rallonge to facilitate financial inclusion for all while also improving lives for the better. Currently, over 20% of the daily transactions are canceled due to insufficient balance. For customers, this can be frustrating, especially in emergency situations.
In Kenya, the overdraft service was introduced in 2019 and is known as Fuliza while in Lesotho it’s known as Ntlatse and Songesha in Tanzania. The overdraft facility sees over Sh1.6 billion borrowed daily.
In her opening speech, Pamela Ilunga, Deputy Managing Director of Vodacom Congo, stated, “M-Pesa has been on a journey since its introduction in 2012. Undeniably, M-Pesa has been a solution to financial inclusion for the population of the DRC as well as complementing our different customers’ lifestyles. This has made us the mobile financial institution of choice.”
This partnership with Access Bank allows VodaCash to advance on its mission to provide accessible financial services to remote areas and ensure all Congolese have access to basic necessities. Initially, the focus was providing fundamental services such as domestic money transfers and the purchase of airtime. Over time, M-Pesa has expanded to include services such as forex, paying TV, and bills.
Hashim Mukudi, Managing Director of VodaCash, also announced that “several more collaborations with M-Pesa are coming up, each tailored towards advocating inclusivity and improving customers’ lifestyles, aligning with the 2030 SDGs ‘No poverty’ and ‘reducing equality’. ”
Pamela Ilunga added, “At Vodacom, we believe that ’Together We Can’. We can make an impact on the economy. We can participate in and promote the digital revolution that is currently taking place in the DRC. M-Pesa Rallonge is only the first of several more services we are developing to improve lives and facilitate access to financial services using eco-responsible processes.”
The Deputy Managing Director of Vodacom Congo closed her speech by commending their partner, Access Bank, for sharing the same vision of “responding to the real needs of the Congolese population to financial inclusion and providing a platform that will allow its customers to use this new product.”
With its M-Pesa brand, VodaCash offers a wide range of high value-added products and services at quality/price ratio adapted to the spending power of the Congolese population and contributes to the socio-economic development of the DRC, in line with its vision of encouraging financial inclusion for communities. With an active base of more than 6 million subscribers since its launch in October 2012, M-Pesa is positioning itself as a key player in the DRC financial inclusion program, a program endorsed by the Central Bank of Congo (BCC).
M-Pesa has positioned itself as a critical player in the DRC national financial inclusion program, a program endorsed by the Central Bank of Congo (BCC). Through mobile financial services, VodaCash’s mission is to provide convenience and efficiency to customers by enabling thousands of men and women in all occupations to conduct transactions and thus propel economic growth by increasing financial flows, raising household incomes, accelerating microfinance, increasing savings, and transforming the informal economy into the formal economy.