Safaricom has launched an M-Pesa bill management service. The innovation targets schools, landlords, utilities and other businesses with repeat payments. It will offer a platform where they can present and receive pending payments from customers and issue electronic receipts. For M-Pesa customers, the service offers a single point where they can view and automate payment of all their bills, besides receiving reminders.
To start with, the innovative platform will enable the management of schools to customise different types of payments such as tuition, lunch, transport and school trips. It will also send reminders of school fees balances to parents and guardians. In the same vein, landlords and property agents will be able to send rent payment reminders and reconcile any received payments. For utility providers such as water and internet providers, the service will enable them to automatically bill their customers who will in turn view and manage pending bills with ease.
“M-Pesa bill manager empowers thousands of Kenyan businesses, especially schools and landlords, to digitise their businesses beyond just collecting payments at no additional cost. The service will equally empower millions of M-Pesa PayBill customers with better record keeping by providing digital receipts for each payment,” said Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom’s chief executive officer.
All payments received through M-Pesa will be instantly reconciled on the platform, which will also provide an option to manually add them. Customers using the service will instantly receive a text message, reminding them when a new bill has either been generated or it is due. The platform will be offered free of charge to all businesses with a Lipa Na M-Pesa pay bill number. With automatic bill tracking and reconciliation, the service will save time and money for customers of respective businesses and organizations, since they will not have to queue in order to make payments or present paper work detailing the same.