Safaricom Launches Mobile Wallet and Mini App for Kenyan Students

Safaricom and Kenya’s Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) have partnered on a mobile wallet and a mini app.

The new HELB Mobile Wallet will allow students to receive the upkeep portion of their student loans directly to their M-PESA account, while the HELB M-PESA Mini App will help students manage their accounts, the organizations said in a Thursday (April 27) press release.

M-PESA is the mobile payments system launched by Safaricom, a Kenyan mobile network operator, while HELB is a state body that provides loans, bursaries and scholarships to Kenyans pursuing higher education, according to the press release.

“This partnership with Safaricom will empower beneficiaries with even more convenience and greatly enhance their experience when accessing funds and our services,” HELB CEO Charles Ringera said in the release.

With the new mini app — which can be accessed from within the M-PESA Super App — students can apply for subsequent loans, access their HELB upkeep funds, withdraw funds, view their loan status, access their statements and repay loans, Ringera said.

In addition, first-year students making their first application will be able to choose to receive the upkeep portion of the HELB loan through M-PESA or the mobile wallet. Existing beneficiaries in their second or later year of studies will be able to do so later, as this capability is gradually rolled out, according to the press release.

“We are honored to be HELB’s partner of choice to deliver innovations that meet the evolving needs of their customers in a rapidly digitizing world,” Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said in the release. “Through this partnership, we will build and deliver mobile and digital solutions that will further empower all beneficiaries with more convenience by enabling them to easily access and manage HELB funds and services on their mobile phone.”

As PYMNTS reported in September 2022, open banking application programming interfaces (APIs) are only so useful in the context of sizeable unbanked populations in Africa, and a range of mobile money wallets present a viable alternative to a bank account for a number of everyday use cases.

Ndegwa told PYMNTS in an interview posted in June 2022 that Safaricom welcomes partnerships with other players and pointed to the 42,000 developers who use M-PESA APIs to give customers the services they need.