Please Help me understand something.

1. If my lock savings target is 100k, and I open the account with 99,999 kshs and then top up with 2 bob a day later, then withdraw 90k, will I earn my interest on the 10,001 kshs average balance at the end of the lock period of 1 month, given I did reach my target? Safaricom customer service employees seem quite clueless on these matters. I have received several different answers from several of them.

2. Have been told that Mshwari itself pays zero interest, is this true? Their fine print has changed twice and tells different stories too.If it pays zero, what is its purpose? Safcon might as well just abolish it.

3. If I already had 100k on MPESA and someone sent 70k, would the incoming transfer be rejected on their end or mine due to MPESA's limits? Who then will receive the rejection message?

Asanteni in advance, nduguzanguni.

I will answer number 3.

If you have 100K on Mpesa and someone sends 70K, the transaction will not go through, the sender will be told to alert you to withdraw the money in your account to facilitate the new cash in.


My understanding of no.2

Mshwari is an account with CBA facilitated by Safaricom. CBA carries the risk associated with non-payments of loans and any interests accrued. Mshwari accounts can be accessed through Mpesa - the mobile money transfer service of Safaricom.

Asante muchr. I was told that Mshwari stopped paying interest as soon as the 2016 law on all deposits having to pay 70% of the CBR came into effect. So it converted to being an ordinary sort of transactional account that pays zero interest but charges a 7.5% "facilitation fee" for loans on our mobiles. The only benefit I see is that you can store virtualy unlimited amounts of money on it (even millions) compared to Mpesa's 100k. But who in their right mind would store millions there if it is paying zero interest?

On question #1 I think I have it figured out. They pay the standard 70% of CBR which is about 6.3% (70% of 9%) as long as you hit your savings target, and the amount is paid on your average daily balance. What I am yet to confirm is whether they pay no interest at all if you never reach your savings target. One customer service representative told me this some time back. Not sure how true that is. If it is, then Mshwari lock would be equally useless unless one hits their target.

Mshwari bure kabisa! Frequent outages and lagging messages. Today for example my M-shwari lock matured yet no message yet and no monee remitted to M-shwari yet. And bills need to be paid pronto (I like paying my bills on day one.. no delays). Jana it was OUT for several hours in the afternoon as well meaning if you had to make an urgent payment and had the money in M-shwari you would have been completely stuck!

FDs in the tier 2s or 3s will give u much less headache

Signs of an economy in distress

I don't touch any bank that does not have a branch in any other country except Kiinya. I especially don't touch the Singh banks! Those ones with their chopdi shadow banking systems can collapse on a sneeze at any time!