Kenyan telco sets up mobile payment system for public transportation
The Kenyan telco Safaricom will soon roll out a service that lets public transportation customers pay through the M-Pesa mobile money system.
IT News Africa reports that the new mobile-based fare payment service, which will roll out under the Lipa Na M-Pesa scheme, will compete with Equity Bank and Google's BebaPay, a pre-paid plastic card used to settle public transport bills. BebaPay uses near field communications.
No timeline for the rollout was provided, the newspaper added. It will target more than 20,000 licensed public transportation operators, the site said, who will pay Safaricom 1 percent commission on the value of each transaction.
Safaricom's entry into the bus fare payment market follows payments schemes such as Lipa Kodi for rent, Lipa Karo for school fees and Lipa Na M-Pesa for retail, according to the site.
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