The relationship between Kenya and China is undoubtedly growing at an alarming speed. Just few days ago they announced plans to build a mall here in Nairobi Kenya.
They have helped Kenya in so many ways. The roads are products of Chinese. Everything worth talking of right now in Kenya is associated with Chinese.
So like or not Chinese are taking over. Maybe soon enough they will be added as the 44th tribe in Kenya who knows?
Despite President Uhuru Kenyatta signing a deal where we will be selling to them our avocado among other farm products Safaricom has also felt their ever increasing presence and have decided to acknowledge them in a might way.
Subscribers of M-Pesa, Kenya’s largest mobile money platform can now send money to China through WeChat, one of the leading social media and payment app in China.
The money transfer has been made possible through Family Bank’s partnership with SimbaPay, a financial tech firm based in London.
The initiative will see millions of M-Pesa users send money to their friends or family in China who use WeChat, which has more than a billion subscribers.
Users wishing to send money to China will use the dedicated PayBill number 261059 on M-Pesa. The number belongs to Family Bank. The recipient’s number is entered as the account number after entering the PayBill number. Upon the completion of the transaction, the money can be accessed through WeChat’s mobile wallet.
The transaction cost is a bit inconsistent and is dependent on the amount one sends. For instance, 350 shillings is charged as a cost of sending 80 US dollars, which loosely translates to 8,200 shillings.
Customers will receive a notification stating how much they will send in Kenya shillings, the current exchange rate, and the Chinese Yuan the other person will receive. The exchange rate will be updated on a daily basis.
According to Family Bank’s Chief Operations Officer, Godfrey Kamau, the partnership is a huge milestone for the company and its customers.
“We are glad to extend, more so to our SME customers, a solution that offers an instant, reliable, traceable and affordable channel to send money to their suppliers and business partners in China,” he said.
This is also aimed at promoting other forms of trade and even encourage other companies to join the new partnership with China.
What do you think of this Safaricom move to enable sending money direct from Kenya to China using Mpesa?