NAIROBI (Xinhua) --
Kenyans will from Sunday start paying higher
mobile money transaction fees following the increase of taxes by
government.The National Treasury in the budget
presented this month raised mobile money excise tax from 10
percent to 12 percent.
Kenya’s three mobile money service operators namely Safaricom,
Telkom and Airtel protested the new tax, noting it will hurt the
poor most and undo most of the gains made in promoting a digital
economy.
Safaricom, the East African nation’s leading telecom which
controls about 70 percent of the mobile money market, has
consequently moved to effect the new charges.
Safaricom, which runs the popular mobile money service Mpesa,
on Saturday, informed its customers that starting Sunday, its
tariffs would go up.
"Pursuant to the Finance Bill 2018 and the Provisional
Collection of Taxes and Duties Act, we have made the following
adjustments to our Mpesa tariffs," said the company in a notice.
The new charges on transactions are small but significant
considering that Safaricom has the bulk of the close to 30
million mobile money subscribers and millions of Kenyans rely on
the service to conduct their businesses.
Analysts, however, were optimistic that the new charges may
not affect mobile money usage in the East African nation.
"Mobile money has become part and parcel of the lives of
Kenyans.
|It has become a basic need that many cannot do without.
|Therefore, my take is that its use would not go down due to
the changes," said Ernest Manuyo, a business management lecturer
in Nairobi.
Kenyans transacted 36 billion U.S. dollars on mobile money
last year, up from 33 billion in 2016.
