Telecommunication service provider Safaricom yesterday launched Ziidi, a wealth management product that is set to disrupt the country’s retail investment sector.
Speaking yesterday during an occasion to celebrate 18 years of M-PESA, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said the firm will continue investing in the platform to provide a one-stop-shop for subscribers’ financial needs.
“Today we are recording up to 4,000 transactions per second on M-PESA and we are working to get this up to 10,000 which is informed by our customers’ needs and what they have come to expect from the platform,” said Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa.
The Ziidi Money Market Fund (MMF) allows M-Pesa customers to invest in a money market fund from as low as Sh100 and earn a net return of 7 per cent. The service is available to users on both smartphones and feature phones with no charges or maintenance fees.
“This is about how we think about our consumers’ behaviour, how they work with money and ensure that at each point we are offering a solution for them,” explained Ms Esther Waititu, Safaricom Chief Financial Services Officer.
“You earn money and we enable you to receive that money into your pocket, you spend it and M-PESA enables you to do this through the different payment solutions we have and today we have a solution that allows you to save and earn a return on the income that you have made,” she said.
Data from the firm’s latest annual report indicates that the company recorded Sh1.85 billion in assets under management in the last financial year. The number of subscribers that had opted in during this pilot phase stood at 722,000, with 119,300 active users that saw the service record Sh13.4 million revenues.
