Kenyan telecommunications firm Safaricom has recently upgraded its mobile banking platform to provide close to instantaneous payments.
The overhaul to the mobile payment platform results in transfers being completed within 30 seconds. This is a dramatic improvement as opposed to the previous 2 hour wait time.
“Innovation is a continuous process at Safaricom and that is why we have been seeking ways to deliver services to customers with speed and efficiency. Twelve leading banks and 26 SACCOs have already migrated to the new platform and migration is on-going for 30 other institutions,” stated Safaricom’s CEO Bob Collymore.
The new transfer time will help streamline M-Pesa’s operations in the region. M-Pesa is used as a remittance service, a payment method, and way for employers to pay their employees.
Given the rural communities where the majority of the population is, M-Pesa provides a now even faster and simpler banking alternative. Since the service was first introduced in 2011 it has seen a 262% growth, with just 3.3 million registered users in December 2011 to 9 million in December 2013. These numbers are expected to increase to 13 million by the end of this year.
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