If you live outside the country and send money home you may have experienced the frustration of not being able to directly send money to your relatives via Mpesa and having to send money home sometimes through a third party, either a bank or an individual. Or how sometimes how it takes hours for a bank transfer to go through when you need the money to go through immediately. Well, things have changed.
Safaricom has today launched M-Pesa Global which opens up M-Pesa to the rest of the world and doesn’t just limit transactions to East Africa. You can transact anywhere. The cash you send will be available within minutes and the person you are sending the money to will be able to access money within minutes through M-PESA, or hours through a bank account or at over 500,000 Western Union Agent Locations. The new service will allow anyone from virtually anywhere in the world to send money to any M-PESA customer in Kenya.
You can access the service by dialling *840# or by selecting “M-PESA Global” under the M-PESA menu on mySafaricomApp.
To access M-Pesa Global, Safaricom subscribers can dial *840# or by navigating to “M-PESA Global” under the M-PESA menu on mySafaricomApp. You may need to update your app on Android if you can’t see it. The update for iOS will be available in a couple of days.
Apart from the already existing channels, you will be able to send money to be picked up at Westen Union Agents all over the world. Transfers through bank accounts to the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Germany will also be available immediately, with services to bank accounts in other countries being rolled out in the coming weeks.
This will make it easier for any person who has M-Pesa to send money quickly and easily to other M-Pesa users around the world. Imagine the convenience of not having to go to the bank in order to send somebody money halfway across the world and being able to do it from the comfort of your home or office.
With M-Pesa Global, you can send or received amounts from Ksh. 100 to Ksh. 70,000 in one transaction. Here are the transaction costs.
| Max | Transaction Charges (Kes) | |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 5,000 | 100 |
| 5,001 | 15,000 | 250 |
| 15,001 | 35,000 | 350 |
| 35,001 | 70,000 | 500 |
Already M-Pesa global is being used by customers to make and receive payments from Paypal which is in 200 markets across the world. M-Pesa Global also has World Remit and HomeSend on its platform so you can send and receive money in a variety of ways.
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