If you run a small business in Kenya, you already know the quiet tax that comes with every mobile money transaction: the fee. It’s small enough that you rarely question it, but big enough that, multiplied across hundreds of transactions a month, it eats into margins you worked hard to protect. That’s precisely the pain point Pochi la Biashara has decided to attack, and the changes are bigger than a simple price cut.
The Headline: Fees Slashed Nearly in Half
Starting now, customers paying into a Pochi account will pay a maximum transaction fee of just KES 50, depending on the amount involved. That’s down from a previous ceiling of KES 108, a reduction of more than 50% at the top end.
It doesn’t stop with customers. Merchants who transact directly from their own Pochi wallets get the same relief: a maximum fee of KES 50, down from the old KES 108 cap.
For a business processing dozens of transactions a day, this isn’t a marginal tweak. It’s real money staying where it belongs, in the till, not siphoned off in fees. A shopkeeper who used to lose over a hundred shillings on a single transaction now keeps significantly more of every sale.
But This Isn’t Just a Fee Story
It would be easy to stop the story there, but the more interesting shift is what’s been bundled alongside the cheaper transactions. Pochi la Biashara is positioning itself as less of a payment tool and more of a small business operating system.
Credit, on demand. Through Taasi Pochi, merchants get access to credit — a lifeline for businesses that need to restock inventory before the next sale comes in, without waiting on a traditional bank loan process.
A safety net for the unexpected. Running a small business means living with risk: a burst pipe, a family emergency, a slow month. Tuunza Mapato protection benefits are designed to safeguard a merchant’s livelihood against exactly these kinds of disruptions, insurance built for people who don’t have the luxury of a corporate HR department managing their coverage.
A place to grow savings. Ziidi Pochi lets customers save and grow their money, turning what used to be a purely transactional wallet into something closer to a savings tool.
Data that fits the business. Ofa ya Pochi bundles offer tailored data plans, recognizing that connectivity is now as essential to running a shop as electricity.
Cleaner books, less chaos. Perhaps the most underrated benefit here is separation, keeping business money apart from personal funds. For many small traders, that line has always been blurry, making it hard to know if the business is actually profitable. With cleaner tracking, merchants can finally see exactly what the business is earning and manage cash flow with real confidence.
Less cash, less hassle. By accepting digital payments, merchants also cut down on handling physical cash — with every transaction recorded automatically in one place. That means fewer trips to deposit cash, less risk of loss or theft, and a running record that makes accounting (or even a future loan application) far simpler.
The Bigger Picture
Cutting a fee from KES 108 to KES 50 grabs attention. But the real story is a mobile money product growing up — evolving from “a way to receive payment” into a fuller toolkit that helps small businesses save, borrow, insure, and organize themselves. For Kenya’s army of small traders, that combination- lower costs today, more resilience tomorrow- might matter even more than the discount itself.
Read Also: From 600,000 to 2.2 Million Users: The Playbook Behind Safaricom’s Pochi la Biashara Success