Safaricom is calling on the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) to reinstate bank to mobile money transfer charges.

This marks the first time Safaricom is joining local mainstream banks in calling for the reinstatement of the fees that were frozen in the year 2020.

Local banks led by Equity Bank have been calling for fees customers were being charged to send money from their bank accounts to mobile accounts to be reinstated.

In the new move by Safaricom, chief executive officer Peter Ndegwa says that the company is in talks with CBK to have the fees brought back.

“I am sure we will need to address it, but we need to talk to the regulators…central bank and (others) so that we see the best way of addressing it,” said Ndegwa.

He, however, noted that they are expecting the charges to be less than what Kenyans were paying before the fees were suspended.

“If we go back to charging, it will be at a much lower price than when we started. The same that we did with P-2-P (peer-to-peer), it will be at a much lower price,” he said.

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Ndegwa told a local daily that since the waiver of the fees, Safaricom had witnessed significant growth in the amount of money going into banks through its platform.

He added that Safaricom is currently acting like a collection ecosystem for banks, with the agent network growing 50 per cent.

“So, today, actually banks don’t need to set up branches because if you want cash, it comes through the agent network. Although we are not receiving a lot of money that goes to the bank, we pay commissions,” said Ndegwa.