Barclays Bank and Safaricom Rolls Out Collaborative M-PESA Services

Barclays Bank of Kenya has today joined the M-Pesa bandwagon instead of innovating. The bank is expected to offer various services under the M-Pesa platform.
Barclays account holders who are individuals will be able to deposit and withdraw directly from their phones while Safaricom M-PESA agents who bank with Barclays will be able to buy the e-float for their daily operations.

Adan Mohamed, Regional Managing Director quipped, “Customers are at the heart of everything we do.  We are deeply committed to growing our presence in East and West Africa; we therefore continue to respond to and cater for diverse customer segments in terms of channels, products, and services.”

Barclays CEO noted that the partnership with Safaricom was bolstered by the Barclays Hello Money banking services and Customer Contact Center, which operates 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph added that the partnership is in tandem with Safaricom’s strategy of stretching M-PESA’s footprint beyond the regular agent outlets. It will also further improve efficiency within the M-PESA service as agents will have more points from which to access the all-important e-money or float which is critical to their day to day operations

Barclays becomes the 8th bank to partner with Safaricom’s M-PESA service either as an agent or super agent, denoting the growing co-operation between the globally-acclaimed innovation and banking industry players.

M-PESA allows customers to transfer and receive money using their mobile phones. Kenya was among the first countries in the world to commercially launch this service and the M-PESA application is installed on the SIM card and works on all makes (and models) of mobile telephone handsets.