By M&M Team
The money transfer app, mKey, launched by Equity Group Holdings subsidiary, Finserve, early last month is a liberating tool for Kenyans whose financial transactions are largely conducted over the mobile phone.
Here are six ways in which it frees users from sim card based money transfer services.
1 No more switching off phones to change sim cards
If you have two sim cards and one phone – that is not dual sim – then you know how messy sending or receiving money through sim card based mobile money transfer can be.
You have to switch off yourself from communication in order to insert the sim card you use for financial transaction. In that time as your phone is booting, you could miss a call that could transform your career of small business.
With mKey app which can be downloaded here, you don’t have to switch off your phone because the money transfer transactions are conducted over the internet.
2 The app is Telecom agnostic
Sim card based money transfer services tend to lock users to telecoms that own that service irrespective of how poor or expensive other services are.
With mKey, users are freed from the being locked by telecoms. Because it is internet based, mobile phone service subscribers can migrate from one company to another without the fear that they will lose money transfer services.
3 Users can send more than Sh70,000 in one transaction.
Sending more than Sh70,000 through sim card based money transfer services is very expensive and time consuming.
For example, users have to send five transactions if they want to transfer Sh350,000. This transaction over a period of three days because the highest amount of money one can send is Sh70,000 and the maximum amount users are allowed to send in a day is Sh140,000.
Those transactions will cost the user Sh1500 on Mpesa and Sh330 on Airtel Money.
But mKey allows users to transfer more than double what users are allowed to send on sim card based money transfer services in one transaction.
4 Lowest Tariffs
If one is cost conscious in financial transactions, mKey is the obvious choice because it offers the lowest rates compared with the sim card based transfer services.
You can check mKey tariffs here and compare with sim card transfer services.
5 Multiple digital wallet deposit channels Â
Unlike sim card based money transfer services, mKey offers users multiple channels to load money in the digital wallet.
Users can deposit money through more than 30,000 Equity Bank agents spread across the country. They can also load money into their Mpesa or Equitel accounts and then push it to their mKey accounts. Users can also pull money from their internet bank accounts and then push it to mKey accounts.
6 Group accounts
The app opens a new chapter on how Kenyans raise fund for group activities. The app comes with group account option which is available to all users.
To activate the group account all a user needs is to add members and the group. The added members can then begin sending money to the account directly from their mKey accounts.
