Top Kenyan Banks Push for Charges on Mobile Money Wallets and Bank Account Transactions

In a recent turn of events, the top Kenyan Banks are now pushing to reinstate the charges on the money transfers between bank accounts and mobile money wallets.

“Banks have invested a lot and if you look at the transaction throughput, it is up 50 percent to 500 million transactions on our digital channels last year. This requires a lot of investment in terms of throughput, back-end and system processing.”

Joshua Oigara, Chief Executive, KCB Group

“We saw the volume of transactions shoot up whether it was M-Pesa (or)…bank-to-bank. When you are investing in a mobile platform it is based on a return. The thing that is causing a little worry is that if it stays for long we are going to see innovation and services coming out of the platform reduce.”

Jeremy Awori, Chief Executive, Absa Kenya

“CBK rejected bankers’ push to reinstate fees on the transfer of cash between accounts and mobile phone wallets at the end of 2020 when it ended free M-Pesa transactions of up to Sh1,000.“This year, we have had long discussions. It’s just not KBA (Kenya Bankers Association) anymore. It’s a bank-to-bank specific bilateral conversation that’s going on. There must be a way of giving justifications as well.

The way I think the regime will go is that there would be some transactions for which the banks will not charge.”

Joshua Oigara, Chief Executive, KCB Group