Service for M-Pesa customers eased

Dar es Salaam. Tanzania’s M-Pesa customers can now receive and send money in less than five minutes around the world.

That has been made possible by the launch of the MoneyGram-M-Pesa money transfer service.

It involves MoneyGram and Vodacom.

“Tanzanian expatriates working abroad will now be able to send money to their home country within less than five minutes. There is no need for queuing in the banks,” the Vice President of Africa-MoneyGram, Mr Herve Chamel, said during the launching ceremony yesterday here.

He said with more than 350,000 locations around the world, MoneyGram cooperation with Vodacom would enable M-Pesa customers in Tanzania to send and receive cash with secure, affordable, reliable and efficient services.

“This partnership signifies a journey for further technological development. The security and ability to receive and send money has been enhanced. If you have a student studying abroad you can now send money very easily,” said the Vodacom officer for M-Commerce, Mr Jacques Voogt. Regarding the threat of cyber crimes, he said they were well prepared to protect customers receiving and sending money through instituting a special customer’s code.

The director of payment services for the Bank of Tanzania, Mr Bernard Dadi, said the new service would improve financial inclusion of Tanzanians and consolidate economic and social integration in East Africa.

“We have recently witnessed the inflow of foreign direct investment to our country at the value of $100 million. With this new money transfer service the FDI inflows will increase significantly,” he said.

The MoneyGram manager for East Africa, Mr Erick Njuguna, said with more than 12 million subscribers of M-Pesa, Tanzania was set to have more customers of the mobile money transfer with the introduction of such a service.