Friday, March 29, 2024

How mobile payments innovations curbed the second wave of COVID-19 in Kenya

With the second and third waves of the spread of COVID-19 biting hard on developing and middle-income countries globally, Kenya is ripping from digital finance as a means to stem the spread of COVID-19. The government and major fintech service providers such as banks and major telecom companies such as Telkom Kenya are implementing measures to shift a greater volume of payment transactions toward mobile money and away from cash — which the World Health Organization flagged as a conduit for the spread of the coronavirus.

It’s an option facilitated by the boom in fintech that’s occurred in Africa over the last decade. By several estimates, the continent is home to the largest share of the world’s unbanked population and has a sizable number of underbanked consumers and SMEs.

As COVID-19 cases began to grow in the continent’s major economies last week, Africa’s leader in digital payment adoption — Kenya — turned to mobile-money as a public health tool.

Innovations mainly in the tariff waiver and management options have acted as a major intensive for Kenyans to choose mobile transactions over cash transactions. This has helped curb the spread of the COVID-19  virus from one person to another via notes and coins.

Telkom Kenya through its fintech product T-Kash has been a leader in creating incentives in its tariff structure for people to choose mobile transactions over cash. Now with T-Kash Customers can send any amount of money across local networks at no cost; Customers will be able to enjoy this service via Telkom’s digital financial services platform, T-kash, for the next 60 days; Customers will also get bonus airtime when they purchase airtime via T-kash. Within the same period, customers will get an extra 25% worth of bonus airtime, when they purchase airtime via T-kash.

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