Fears of a reversal by small businesses such as matatu and boda boda operators have led to increased adoption of Safaricom's Pochi La Biashara system, with the number of farmers doubling to 632,681 by the end of March this year.
In the same period last year, there were 292,634 Pochi La Biashara farmers as small businesses sought to separate their businesses from their personal finances. The product enables merchants to separate business cash from personal cash. However, a customer cannot cancel a transaction made through Pochi La Biashara, a practice that is becoming rampant as more Kenyans pay for goods and services to merchants' mobile phone lines.
This increase brings the number of Pochi La Biashara farmers close to the number of active Lipa na M-Pesa traders, which increased by 4.3 percent to 633,009 in the period under review.
The products are part of solutions built on Safaricom's M-Pesa mobile financial services platform.
Transactions on the two Safaricom payment platforms, coupled with the transfer of services, increased M-Pesa revenue by 19.4 percent year-on-year to Sh139.91 billion by the end of March, results released by the telecom operator on Thursday showed.
Safaricom launched the product in 2020 to allow small businesses that do not have a Lipa na M-Pesa line to receive money from customers in a separate wallet.
“A big concern for small business owners who use M-Pesa personal accounts to receive payments is how often people take advantage of this by reversing funds sent to purchase a service or product,” Safaricom was quoted as saying in a previous article.
“With Pochi La Biashara, one cannot reverse any funds without the consent of the other party involved, protecting business owners from fraudulent customers.”
Safaricom launched Pochi La Biashara at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when Kenyans were discouraged from handling cash to curb the spread of coronavirus.
The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has waived fees on transactions worth Sh1,000 or less. The Central Bank of Kuwait will later lower this limit to amounts of Sh100 or less, allowing people to pay matatu prices, for example, using their mobile phones.
Before Pochi La Biashara, small businesses would either ask customers to include a withdrawal fee when sending money to their mobile numbers or withdrawing from an M-Pesa agent. Small businesses also prefer Pochi La Biashara because money sent to the business account will not be debited by Fuliza, a mobile overdraft facility. Additionally, business owners have access to account data and can opt in or out of the service as desired.