Safaricom has just announced that it will raise M-Pesa account limits to Ksh 500,000 up from Ksh 300,000. The telco has announced that these limits are effective from tomorrow (15th August 2023) for all M-Pesa customers.
Safaricom has also said that the current individual transaction limits of Ksh 150,000 will remain unchanged. What is changing is the total daily transaction limit. This means that customers can make as many transactions of Ksh 150,000 every day as long as they are within their daily limit of Ksh 500,000.
The Central Bank has approved these changes in a move that Safaricom says will boost business transactions. We do not have the data of the breakdown of M-Pesa transactions but Safaricom has revealed that over 606,000 businesses received payments through Lipa Na M-Pesa last year. This translated to a total of over KSh 1.625 trillion transacted in the 12 months.
CEO’s Statement
Commenting on this, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said, “We appreciate the role that the Central Bank of Kenya has played by constantly providing guidance on innovations and protections that we have put in place to strengthen M-PESA’s adherence to KYC, anti-money laundering and other financial regulations and safeguards. The increased account limits will provide customers and especially small businesses with increased convenience as the share of cashless transactions continues to rise.”
M-Pesa is still Safaricom’s biggest earner but raising the limits isn’t just going to get it to grow even further. My thoughts are that the telco should find ways to lower the transaction fees per transaction if that is to get people to use M-Pesa multiple times per day. Even though M-Pesa is widely used in Kenya, it is not the cheapest way to send money to other people locally and out of the country, it is just more convenient.
Read: What You Need to Know About Faraja, The Buy Now Pay Later Service for Lipa Na M-Pesa