Safaricom has launched SurePay, a service that will allow corporate and Public Benefit Organisations to track funds sent to beneficiaries via Mpesa.
The service allows for the funding organization to place restrictions on how the money is spent once it has been transferred to the beneficiary’s phone.
SurePay will help curb the misappropriation of funds by NGOs and other aid organizations in the country. The World food Programme (WFP) is already using the service to send food vouchers in five food-scarce counties in Kenya.
Mpesa SurePay is also being used to pay salaries by customers with staff who live in areas with scarcely distributed financial institutions.
Mpesa was launched in 2007 by Safaricom; it currently caters to over 21 million customers and is working on improving its platform to support 600 transactions per second. Originally from Kenya, Mpesa has since expanded to Afghanistan, south Africa, India and recently, Eastern Europe.