Sure at the FT Africa Payments Innovation Summit on Wednesday this week. The banks and telecoms were cozily enjoying the podium chatting how the two can complement rather than compete against each other.
Truth be said, banks from the go were against telecoms taking up roles that were traditionally a reserve for the banking institutions. The hard reality is that the telecoms’ innovation, mobile money payment solutions, better served the Kenyan mass market is ways banks failed to address. Their resolution to work with (instead of against) telecoms could be likened to forced cohabitation with undertones of disgruntlement.
PesaLink is a jab by the Banking fraternity to Mobile Money Services
Jointly the banks under an umbrella company founded by the Kenya Bankers Association, Integrated Payment Services Limited (IPSL) came up with PesaLink. A money transfer payment solutions that enable customers to transfer money between different bank accounts and make payments.
Customers can access PesaLink services from the convenience of a mobile app, the internet, banks’ ATMs, bank agents’ outlets, and in banks’ branches. So far, 22 local banks have been approved by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to provide interbank money transfer services to their customers, and reports indicate banks are already processing massive amounts of money daily.
(L-R) Integrated Payment Services Limited Chief Information Officer Michael Mbuthia. Integrated Payment Services Limited CEO Jennifer Theuri. Photo Courtesy The Star
The service went live about two months ago, and the latest report shows more than two million customers have signed up for PesaLink service with their respective banks. The IPSL CEO Jennifer Theuri confirmed this report and went further to elaborate how participating banks have recorded impressive average turnaround rate for transactions on PesaLink.
“At IPSL, we are glad to celebrate the one-month brand rollout milestone, which provides a good test run ahead of our formal launch in the coming week. So far, we have managed to link more than 2 million bank customers on PesaLink drawn from 22 member banks, and we hope to significantly raise this number in the next few weeks as we continue to onboard more banks,” said Theuri.
How PesaLink works
The new banking service allows customers enrolled to the PesaLink service to transfer as low as Ksh. 10 to Ksh. 999,999 across the banking system at a much affordable rate compared to the previously available options from the banks.
The service, rolled out the banking industry umbrella body Kenya Bankers Association, was recently launched and will be rolled out in waves across various digital payment platforms. The service promises to cut down on the cost of transactions for customers and the way they interact with banks.
PesaLink has been deployed under the Central Bank of Kenya’s National Payments System (NPS) guidelines and aims at providing interoperability and FinTech money payments solutions for banks’ customers.
