The e-commerce revolution will be MPESAD

Entrepreneurship is born out of necessity to make our environment and our societies better. Better platforms and eco-systems are born out of the need to ensure that business is able to move and that the convenience of the customer is met.

Today’s consumer is very picky and has diverse options for their needs and wants. In the science of understanding the behavioral aspect of the consumer, the essence of convenience is the denominator aspect that is driving the necessity for innovation in ensuring that the consumer is happy.

E-commerce is the new disruption that is changing how the retail world is functioning. The need for the consumer has ease of use and convenience of the platform.

Disruption: I will be MPESAD

When a statement from Safaricom stated that ‘qualifying’ M-PESA customers in Kenya can link their PayPal accounts to their M-PESA wallets, enabling them to easily and securely buy goods and services from merchants around the globe, that is the day I knew that as an entrepreneur, life had just gotten easier.

The convenience of smooth cash flow from one portal to another at the behest of clients across the globe is what drives retail and courtesy of technology, the disruption shall be MPESAD as convergence in the retail sector is driven at the behest of apps and platforms that espouse the essence of the convenience of the consumer.

For me, it has made it easier to push my online business to more developed markets that seek specific market content because now, getting paid is as easy as having a drink at my local without worrying when I will be paid to pay for my salaries and overheads. The convenience in my work has been enhanced by the partnership between Safaricom and PayPal.

Those clients who like giving excuses that payments will delay will now have to bow down to the lord of transactions, MPESA. The ecosystem is growing and more creative innovation is happening. This means with time, it will be real time in terms of payments for work done hence making it easier to move onto the next deal.

This partnership is the foundation that the retail world needed to connect two giant platforms disrupt the number of days needed to get your payments and enhance the convenience needed for the consumer to keep using it. This foundation means online businesses, e-commerce apps, development of paid-up apps and more will increase because it’s an ecosystem that can support more innovation.

For us, at www.sokodirectory.com it means that we can now get ads from across the world and keep pushing for more independent content in the niche market of business. It means we can create content for clients across the world for the first time and have no worries about payments. The headache of receiving payments always hinders one from delivering a job well because of the aspect of worrying but no more.

PayPal is believed to be using the partnership to target Kenya’s growing e-commerce sector, which is witnessing a surge in transactions as more people turn to online shopping as their appetite for convenience grows.

The bottom-line reason is that Kenya is an emerging market with key sectors like retail and manufacturing having great growth prospects. Pay Pal has the opportunity and hence the crafting of the partnership.

About MPESA/PAYPAL

The convenience of the partnership is beautiful for an entrepreneur like me. It will be possible for PayPal users in Kenya to load their PayPal wallets via M-Pesa PayBill number 800088.

With this new development, Safaricom has disrupted the retail sector in the country and I believe that e-commerce will grow by at least 17% because of this partnership. Retail is big in Kenya and it’s a multi-billion industry that needs to be reformed and disrupted and this partnership is in the right direction. Every player in the industry will have to adapt and innovate with this partnership being the benchmark for them to be successful.

PayPal withdrawals in Kenya were only possible through Equity Bank. In comparison to Equity Bank, Safaricom’s M-Pesa network is far much more accessible, through its 148,000 M-PESA agents around the country vis-à-vis Equity’s estimated 266 bank branches and 40,000 agents. This means, Equity has to go back to the drawing and innovate better and this is what the industry needs, more disruption that will enhance the user experience of the consumer and solidify their convenience.

Made Possible: TransferTo

The partnership between PayPal and M-Pesa has been powered by TransferTo, a B2B Cross-Border Mobile Payments Network for emerging markets. According to Wikipedia, An emerging market is a country or region that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not meet standards to be a developed market. This includes countries that may become developed markets in the future or were in the past (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_markets)

Terms and Conditions

The money transfer will not be instant, meaning users will not see the amount reflect on their M-Pesa accounts until after a certain period, between four hours and up to 3 days, depending on the amount transferred. However, this is better and more convenient than what we have at the moment.

There will also be no transaction charges on withdrawals but Forex charges will apply to the transactions. Deposits to PayPal via Mpesa Paybill will attract Paybill transaction costs.

All transactions are subject to M-Pesa transfer limits, meaning one can only transact a maximum of Kes. 70,000 per transaction with a daily transaction limit of Kes. 140,000. Compared to Equity Bank, this could be a bottleneck as the bank can handle larger amounts of money per transaction.

How to set it up

If you don’t know how this works and you want to understand it better, then follow this link.

The service is already up and running and can be accessed from https://www.paypal-mobilemoney.com/m-pesa/