Safaricom raises M-Pesa transaction limit to $1,697
Friday September 22 2023
Safaricom PLC Chief Executive Officer Peter Ndegwa at a past event. PHOTO | POOL
Safaricom has increased its per-transaction limit on its mobile money platform M-Pesa to Ksh250,000 ($1,697), up from the previous Ksh150,000 ($1,018) just weeks after rival Airtel, which operates Airtel Money, made a similar move following regulatory approval by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
The telco said the review, which comes hot on the heels of an August revision of daily total transaction limits from Ksh300,000 ($2,036) to Ksh500,000 ($3,394), takes effect immediately.
Read: Safaricom triples daily M-Pesa limits to $3,478
The new limit will apply to all M-Pesa payment selections ranging from Send Money, Lipa Na M-Pesa Buy Goods, PayBill among other options, while the fees chargeable will remain similar to the one that was previously levied in the Ksh50,001 ($339) to Ksh150,000 band.
“The increased transaction limits are a timely intervention as they will provide customers and businesses with additional convenience when doing business empowering them to do more from their phones,” said Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa.
“Current maximum transaction fees will apply across the new bands including Ksh108 ($0.73) per transaction for Send Money.”
The fee regime widely contrasts with that of Airtel Money which doesn’t charge any transfer fees to send cash to another Airtel Money account across all bands, and only levies a maximum of Ksh105 ($0.71) fee per transaction for high-value transfers to a mobile wallet belonging to another network.
This means that sending the maximum Ksh250,000 from Airtel Money to M-Pesa, for example, will cost Ksh3 less than sending a similar amount across two M-Pesa accounts.
Latest CBK data shows that mobile money payments grew by 6.3 percent in July to hit Ksh684.6 billion ($4.65 billion), which was the highest value of monthly mobile transactions since last December when it stood at Ksh708.1 billion ($4.81 billion).
Read: Kenya mobile money payments hit 7 months high on accounts growth
The growth is expected to grow further with the regulator’s approval of higher transaction limits coupled with the stagnation of transaction fees levied.