SAFARICOM DITCHES MPESA CARD IDEA

Listed-telco Safaricom has reportedly scrapped plans to introduce an MPESA card with top management said to have sharply differed on the merits of the proposed product.

The product was allegedy shelved quietly last month.

The card was to function like normal swipe cards but use the customer's MPESA account to process to pay for goods and services.

It had been said to be in the works for sometime now but allegedly faced strong opposition from one of the senior most C-level executives.

Matters were said to have been so heated that two top executives clashed at a meeting before the idea was finally dropped.

MPESA person to business transactions total over Sh17billion monthly with the MPESA cash till service for businesses, Lipa na MPESA growing by an astonishing 70 per cent annually thus presenting a compelling case for the MPESA Card idea.

However, this represents merely 12 per cent of the MPESA business with the bulk over Sh1.3trillion (US$1.3trn) being person to person transactions.

Those opposing it argued that it held little value proposition and was bad strategy.