Of all the regions across the globe with the fastest mobile money growth, sub-Saharan African tops the list thanks to Safaricom’s M-PESA, the world’s leading mobile money system, which continues to play a massive role in its success.
From a basic SIM card-based money transfer application into a fully-fledged financial service, hosting a ton of other functionalities including merchant services, the growth of M-PESA is unparalleled – and it just got better.
Safaricom’s launch of the new M-PESA Super App introduces cutting-edge technology that consolidates all the M-PESA services to help users do more, fast, and conveniently. It is more than just an M-PESA app; you can view and manage your finances easily with just a few taps using your mobile phone. But how different is it from MySafaricom App?
The new M-PESA app features a new interface that allows a user to access all the core M-PESA transactions in a more simplified experience. It incorporates a new modern look that’s way more intuitive and consumer-centred.
Safaricom rethought the entire user experience and ensured that all the functions such as the send money, buy goods, pay utility bills, withdraw funds at an agent, and purchase airtime, among others are conveniently placed for easy transactions.
There is a range of new features that the app packs that customers will find rather useful. Good examples include Request Money and Send to Many features. With Request Money, an individual doesn’t need to make a call to do so; whereas the send to many eliminates the daunting task of selecting contacts and sending money to them one by one.
Favourites and Frequent
The app’s core functions are expedited by the incorporation of Favorites and Frequent, which are both handy features for locating who to send money to, withdraw from, or simply transact with.
Favorites include saved individual names or businesses you interact with regularly on the app. It negates the need to type or enter the necessary details every time a transaction is initiated. Frequents generates the list of people or businesses you frequently transact with.
Most importantly, M-PESA Super App ingenuously adds mini-apps that avail third-party applications consumers frequently utilize. As such, there is no need to download multiple apps for other services such as paying for government services, parking fees, transport, access banking services, settling utility bills, and paying for food and goods from various merchants. Safaricom continues to add more services from different sectors to make the app all-inclusive.
Unlike other apps that came before it, the new M-PESA Super App can be used in offline mode. That is, users can use the app without an active data bundle. After successfully downloading and logging in, consumers can transact on the app with data turned off completely, but only for services including Send Money, Lipa Na M-PESA, withdraw and buy airtime.
My Spend
Another standout feature of the new M-PESA Super App is My Spend. It is a new addition that comes in handy in helping people know how much they spend (and on what). This is a welcome feature for anyone looking to make the first steps in taking control of their finances.
My Spend gives M-PESA users a chance to keep track of their expenses per month. From the app’s interface, on the card on the home screen, a user can check the aggregate and daily average spend as well as a more detailed view with transactions broken down by category. Best of all, a user can change their category based on what they want to keep monitoring.
M-PESA Super App’s predecessor, MySafaricom App introduced an insightful way of checking your statement with the option to request a full statement via email. While the information was greatly summarized, the new app expands it and gives one the chance to check, review, and interact with their entire M-PESA statement directly from the interface.
Best of all, the M-PESA statement can be filtered based on a customer’s preference, downloaded, or exported in PDF form. Coupled with another feature, Receipts, which allows for the downloading and sharing of e-receipts for send money, buy goods, pay bills, and withdrawal functions, customers can better keep track of all their finances and plan accordingly.
Another upside is that Safaricom presents all these features with security in mind as well. The app incorporates biometric authentication to prevent unauthorized access. This feature permits for logins and transactions on the app using fingerprint or face authentication. This can be done without having to key in the M-PESA PIN manually saving time and improving security simultaneously.
Pochi la Biashara – a new transaction type on M-PESA that enables users to send money to the business wallet for micro-merchants, has not been forgotten. Similarly, from the app’s interface, M-PESA Global can be utilized for transferring money to the mobile, bank, Western Union, PayPal, among others.
Other convenient features that the M-PESA Super App carries include notifications for bills that are due, buying bundles, adding context or a payment description or attaching a GIF for the recipient, uploading a picture that is visible to other M-PESA Super App users during transactions, and using QR codes to initiate send money, buy goods, pay bill and withdrawal processes. Moreover, customers can share their QR codes as well.
.@sitoyo We will continue to develop the app to include exclusive features, products and services, in line with our commitment to innovate and transform the lives of Kenyans.#TheFutureOfMoney
— Safaricom PLC (@SafaricomPLC) June 23, 2021
In a nutshell, this new product from Safaricom is more than a mobile money application. It serves to ensure that every aspect of a customer’s life is successfully met. If there ever was an app that was the most flexible, convenient, and remarkably useful, it would be the new M-PESA Super App.
M-PESA Super App is available on Playstore for Android users and Apple’s App Store for iPhone users. Try it out and get free data bundles.
