From the just concluded Lipa na M-PESA promotion that saw 16 Lipa na M-PESA customers walking away with 8 tractors and 8 trucks, as well as 6 apartments and 120 tuktuks; more women were seen awarded from the competition.
Commenting on this, CEO of Safaricom Michael Joseph said, ‘When you see the general usage of M-Pesa and particularly Lipa na M-pesa services, we see a huge number of them being women. We started M-pesa to see lives being changed and its incredible to see how the lives of women, particularly women in business being changed by helping them send and receive money, being able to get loans through M-shwari and at the end of the day, buy products from stores to feed their families using the Lipa na M-pesa service.’
The introduction of an easy-to-use, safe and convenient service in almost every Kenyan’s mobile phone has revolutionized how we use money; more so for women.
It’s no secret that just last decade, women needed the ‘go-ahead’ by their husbands in order to open bank accounts or even owning a piece of land. The same went for something as simple as getting money to buy groceries from the market since they had to borrow money or get the okay to use the said money with accountability being enforced on them at the end of the day. Nowadays, more women are empowered and informed about how to use money without having their husbands weighing in on their decisions.
One Juliana Mwola, is particularly proud to be a Safaricom customer and an M-pesa user. As one of the grand finale winners from the competition, she got to walk away with a tractor, plough and trailer and as a mother of two boys, this win couldn’t come at a better moment. Beyond sending and receiving money, she also frequently uses M-PESA to buy food from the supermarket and pay for her boys school fees using the Lipa Na M-PESA option.
Safaricom continues to encourage financial inclusion across the board with its array of services including M-Shwari that lets you save money conveniently from your phone and one of my personal favourites, the Lock savings account from Mshwari that forces me to discipline my savings habits.
