Safaricom, Kenya's largest mobile network operator has introduced new rates and sending limits for its MPESA service.

Under the new tariffs, users will be able to send as little as KES 10, and pay KES 3 per transaction upto KES 49. The upper limit per transaction has been retained at KES 70,000 but the transfer fee to registered MPESA users has been raised to KES 100 for transactions between KES 45,000 and 70,000 up from KES 60.

The table below shows the rates as shown on the Safaricom website:

[caption id="attachment_2408" align="aligncenter" width="561" caption="Courtesy safaricom.co.ke"][/caption]

Sending money via MPESA has just become more expensive. Under the previous rates, the most it cost one to send money was 20% of the transaction value, at KES 10  for sending KES 50, and the lowest was 0.09%, at KES 60 for sending KES 70,000. With new rates, it will cost 30% to send the lowest figure, and 0.14% to send the limit. However, for the avaerage MPESA transaction figures KES 1000 to KES 5,000), the rates remain the same at KES 30, or 3% for KES 1000 to 0.6% for sending KES 5,000.

To view the MPESA rates on the Safaricom website, visit http://www.safaricom.co.ke/index.php?id=255