Kenya Commercial Bank has resumed lending via the popular KCB M-Pesa mobile banking platform after days of service disruption.
Chief executive Joshua Oigara said a technical hitch occurred after KCB M-Pesa was temporarily disengaged when upgrading the system and while carrying out a quality assurance exercise.
“KCB M-Pesa was still offering most of the banking services despite the hitch. It's only the lending side that had a problem. But even that is now back,” he said yesterday during a media briefing.
“We apologize to our customers for the inconveniences that this caused.”
KCB has 10 million customers on its mobile banking platforms and an average Sh800 million worth of loans are disbursed monthly through KCB M-Pesa. “KCB M-Pesa loans will now be charged 1.16 per cent per month, down from six per cent previously. A one-off negotiation fee of 2.5 per cent will also be applied to loan applications. Excise duty is applicable on the non interest rate fees, as required by law,” he said.
KCB M-Pesa, a joint initiative of KCB and Safaricom, is among the most popular and largest savings and micro credit platforms. Other popular platforms include M-Shwari operated by Commercial Bank of Africa and Safaricom, and Eazzy 247 by Equity Bank.
