Upon clearance by the Central Bank of Kenya, Safaricom PLC will raise to Ksh. 500,000 the account threshold for M-PESA transactions.
All M-PESA clients will be able to use the increased account limit starting today, Tuesday, August 15, 2023.
The telco said that they value the part the CBK plays in continuously advising them on new strategies and safeguards they have implemented to improve M-PESA’s compliance with KYC, countering money laundering, and other financial legislation and measures.
According to Peter Ndegwa, CEO of Safaricom, the enhanced account limits will bring individuals and small companies in particular greater convenience as the percentage of cashless transactions increases.
M-PESA users will also benefit from a higher daily transaction limit of Ksh. 500,000 along with the raised account limit. Users may perform multiple transactions subject to the Ksh.500,000 daily limit, but the present per-transaction cap of Ksh.150,000 will remain in effect.
As the percentage of cashless transactions keeps increasing, the decision is expected to benefit the nation’s enterprises, particularly SMEs. More than 606,000 enterprises received payments via Lipa Na M-PESA in the most recent fiscal year, which ran to March 2023, for a total of Ksh. 1.625 trillion in transactions.
The Central Bank of Kenya previously approved tripling the M-PESA transaction limits from KSh. 150,000 in March 2020 to KSh. 300,000 for daily and account limits.
