Mobile services company Safaricom Limited has upgraded its Application Programmable Interface (API) system to improve turnaround time for transactions through its money transfer service M-Pesa
According to Safaricom's chief executive officer, Bob Collymore, the upgrade has reduced the time to less than 30 seconds from the previous average of two hours.
Major banks and saccos have moved to the new system improving their M-Pesa service delivery, stated Collymore.
“Twelve leading banks and 26 saccos have already migrated to the new platform. Migration is currently progressing for another 30 institutions,” said Collymore in a statement.
M-Pesa service expects to hit 13mn users by the end of 2014 and has already expanded tremendously attaining 8.8mn subscribers by the end of 2013 from 3.35mn three years ago.
Data from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) shows that the mobile money transactions reached US$24bn in 2013, up from US$16.5bn in 2012.
The upgrade comes at a time when competition for mobile money services is heating up with the licensing of Equity Bank, East Africa’s biggest financial institution.
Mwangi Mumero
