AZIMO LAUNCHES INSTANT M-PESA MOBILE MONEYTRANSFER SERVICE

Azimo, the online money transfer service, today announced that customers across Europe can now send money instantly to the mobile “eWallets” of M-PESA’s 19 million subscribers in Kenya.

Kenya boasts one of the highest global rates of mobile banking, with around 60% of all Kenyans sending or receiving money via their smartphone. Between January and February 2013 almost 100 million mobile banking transactions were recorded totalling $3.3 billion.

According to the Central Bank, Kenyans living abroad sent US$1.38 billion back home in 2013.Azimo’s new service meansthese tens of thousands of hard-working Kenyan migrants can now send money home to support their loved ones at a lower cost than ever before.

Azimo provides a fast, safe, easy and low-cost way to transfer money across borders, offering rates up to 85 per cent cheaper than high street banks and traditional money transfer providers.

The service is available across the UK and Eurozone, including Italy, Ireland and Germany.Funds are delivered instantly, enabling M-PESA customers to withdraw money from any M-PESA agent outlet or participating ATM network in Kenya.

Registering to use Azimo is free and takes just a few secondsfrom a PC or phone using your email address or Facebook profile. All you need is your recipients name exactly as it appears on their M-PESA account, their mobile number and, of course, the amount of money you want to send.

Michael Kent, CEO of Azimo believes it is important to offer hard working migrant a convenient and good value service:"We are delighted to be working with M-PESA to expand our global money transfer network. Africa has long been at the forefront of mobile money and our new service will allow us to help our customers holdon to more oftheir hard-earned cash," said Kent.

In addition to Azimo’s normal low-cost services, customers will get their first transfer FREE by using promotional code AZIMOMPESA.