Last week, Safaricom unveiled a suite of solution dubbed the “M-Pesa One Tap”, aimed at accelerating and easing payments. The suite of solutions includes the M-Pesa card, Wristband and M-pesa tags which will allow customers to make payments easily. Safaricom’s Director of financial services Ron Webb told The Kenyan Wall Street that the telco is looking to make M-Pesa as frictionless as cash and the launch of the product is the natural evolution of the mobile money solutions.
“We are looking to increase our relevance with users. Currently, users will from time to time pay bills and make money transfers but on a daily basis, these users pay for goods. We are looking to tap into this”, Said Mr. Webb. “We shall see a massive impact not only to the business but to the overall economy.” he added.
M-Pesa One Tap will charge merchants 0.5% for transactions, while capping the same at Kshs. 200 for all transactions. Transactions below Kshs. 200 will not be charged both on the merchant and customer side. Webb says this is unlike the high 3.5% charged by acquirers, who also require customers to invest in infrastructure and license fees.
Safaricom requires current Lipa na M-Pesa merchants to meet stringent Know Your Customer requirements which have now been replaced by flexible multi-tier offerings on M-Pesa One Tap. For instance, merchants at the lowest levels will user their existing ones as customers without any further requirements.
Overall, Mr. Webb sees the service having a massive impact not just on the telco but on the merchants and the ripple effects trickling to the economy.
Below is the exclusive interview with Ron Webb on M-PESA OneTap as the next revolution in driving the payments/merchants agenda, ease of use, convenience and privacy of the platform.
