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M-PESA the Safaricom mobile money platform is five years old this year (2012). It provides a mobile e-wallet that is loaded with electronic money called Mpesa. Primarily Mpesa is bought at an M-PESA Agent outlet, where cash money is exchanged for Mpesa money. The spectacular success of Safaricom M-PESA offering, driven by a captive (“peculiar”) mobile service customer base, the roll out and management of M-PESA agents outlet coupled with a gamble in terms of strategy that was singularly executed, has given rise to a service that is the envy of many and the fear of even more. Success begets more success, leading to everyone wanting to jump into the M-PESA agents bandwagon, which in itself is expected and acceptable, the only downside being how to manage and ensure the good name of the service is maintained. The M-PESA agents ecosystem can be a quagmire to unravel for the uninitiated, and that is what this particular blog is all about. M-PESA Agents Classifica...

Welcome and in this blog we take look at M-PESA commission tables and try and see what they tell us about the M-PESA service.    The analysis is based on 2012 Mpesa transaction Fees – the insights were very telling then and inform the design of mobile money economics today. For my foreign readers, and they are the most, am sorry the figures in the following tables are in Kenya Shillings, you are welcome to convert them (using 1USD = 85KES), although not necessary in understanding and following the discussion. What is M-PESA M-PESA is electronic mobile money issued by Kenyan MNO, Safaricom Limited. The “M” = Mobile, and the PESA = Money is Swahili language. M-PESA users buy the e-value by exchanging cash for e-value at agents (merchants) outlets, this transaction called a deposit is offered free of charge to M-PESA users at agents outlets. Hence M-PESA users load e-value called Mpesa into their phones, the Mpesa is the money offered by the M-PESA service. ...