Safaricom launches consumer promotion to boost M-shwari

M-Shwari the loan service from M-Pesa, the first of its kind in Kenya, has unveiled a promotion whose goal is to drive uptake as competition for the stake of the mobile money credit sector tightens.

The banking service is run by Safaricom and Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) and is looking to reward 4,800 winners who will share the sum of Sh50 million for the six weeks the competition will run.

Nicknamed Stawisha Na M-Shwari, Safaricom says the promotion is aimed at encouraging Kenyans to save a culture which now accounts for between 12 per cent and 15 per cent of the country’s wealth.

“Deepening financial inclusion is a key agenda for us and we have continued to evolve M-PESA to drive this objective. The launch of M-Shwari three years ago was a key step in this direction. The challenge now is to keep the product growing to suit the needs of our customers,” Daily Nation quoted Sylvia Mulinge, Director of Consumer Business at Safaricom.

So far M-Shwari has disbursed loans amounting to Sh90 billion since opening its doors in 2012, but as years progressed, stiff competition is coming from rival products such as KCB M-Pesa and Equitel, which are fast becoming popular.

KCB-M-Pesa launched in March last year and has so far disbursed Sh7.8 billion.

New kid on the block Equitel was introduced to the market last year and has since loaned out Sh8.5 billion with Equity Bank’s James Mwangi said the bank receives over 80,000 loan requests on a daily basis.

“The aim of this promotion is to encourage more customers to save on M-Shwari and be rewarded for their financial prudence. The uptake of M-Shwari has so far been amazing but we still see a huge opportunity to bring on board more customers,” said Ms Mulinge.

Lucky participants will pocket a Sh5 million grand prize, some Sh1 million, for 50 weekly winners as well as Sh100,000 on M-Shwari deposits of Sh50 with no withdrawal during the week.

“M-Shwari customers stand at 14 million today. We are proud of our achievements so far and aim to maintain this growth trajectory through our strategic intent to provide simple, yet affordable financial services to millions of Kenyans,” said Jeremy Nguze, chief executive of CBA.

This is the second M-Shwari promotion since its launch in 2012.

SOURCE:ZIPO