TANZANIA: Tigo dishes $1.8m bonus to M-Pesa clients

Tigo has paid back another quarterly Tigo Pesa profit share amounting to Tsh3.314 billion ($1.8million) to its customers. 

It makes the company to be the first and only telecom company in the world to date to share its Mobile Money Trust Account profit, in the form of a quarterly distribution.

“We are really excited to be announcing this distribution to our loyal Tigo Pesa users,” Ruan Swanepoel the Tigo Head of Mobile Financial Services said.

Swanepoel told East African Business Week that it is the profit distribution for this year’s second quarter.  He said the payment underlines their commitment to provide financial access to their customers.

He stressed that it is the second profit share in 2015 and the fifth since Tigo started distributing the interests generated from the Tigo Pesa Trust accounts held in major Tanzanian banks.

“We believe that the Tigo Pesa profit share distribution in 2015 will be a welcome relief to millions of Tigo Pesa users in meeting their various financial commitments,” noted Swanepoel.

Swanepoel said the returns to customers are calculated based on their average daily balance stored in their Tigo Pesa wallet. 

The payment amounting to Tsh3.314 billion ($1.8 million) is almost equal to what the company paid in the first quarter of 2015.

The Tigo Pesa profit share distribution scheme is in line with the Central Bank Circular issued in February 2014. 

The company has so far paid a total of Tsh27.2 billion ($12.84 million) to Tigo Pesa users in five quarterly disbursements since the launch of the service in July 2014.

According to him, between 2013 and 2014 alone, the company launched over 500 new network sites. He said Tigo plans to double its investment by 2017 in terms of coverage and additional capacity networks for deeper penetration in rural areas. 

SOURCE:BUSIWEEK