Vodacom Financial Service launches M-pesa App

MASERU – VODACOM Lesotho (VCL) Financial Service yesterday launched a new M-pesa App to enable customers to access services such as cash withdrawals, sending money, merchant payments, and buy airtime and pay bills. The Managing Director of VCL Financial Service, Palesa Mphunyetsane, said they realised that there are more Basotho who don’t have access to financial services. The new service is intended to close that gap, she said. Mphunyetsane said the new financial services include insurance services and M-Pesa services. They also worked in accommodating small businesses to access cash. She said they realised that people sometimes lose money through M-Pesa transactions and to reverse the process takes time. VCL Financial Service said it wants to reduce the costs people incur during the transaction processes. ‘‘The app will be used by people using an android phone and it will use the contact list in the phone,” she said. She said they found out that 99 percent of people use android phones while one percent use i-Phones. She said they could not delay the launch because of just a few numbers. But they are still working on accommodating even people using i-Phones. “We promise to continue improving our app even more,” she said. Mphunyetsane said the M-Pesa app will be effective on M-Pesa subscribers hence it will use the pin for M-Pesa. As technology advances, Mphunyetsane said they will deliver innovative products and services that will lead to the betterment of customers adding that the M-Pesa app is a timely response to the current digital shift. She said they are determined to harness the power of technology to empower their customers. The commercial manager of VCL, Malatola Phothane, said their mandate is to improve the livelihoods of Basotho and make it possible for every Mosotho to access better services. To ensure that customers are always in control of their money and have easy access to all their favorite M-Pesa products and services from anywhere at any time, they have zero-rated the app. This, according to him, means that their customers can use the M-Pesa service and complete transactions even when they are without data, as long as their data is turned on. Phothane said the customers can download the M-Pesa super App on the Google Play Store for Android devices, by searching for “My M-Pesa Lesotho” My M-Pesa app will be available on the Google store app. He said their objective is to make it easy for people to access services on this app and they are working on adding more which are currently not available. Phothane said they will upgrade the app as soon as next week. He said the app will not consume any data. However, downloading the app requires 8MB. He said the new app entails features such as “check balance” which will be free, send and receive money from friends, family, and any other M-Pesa users can withdraw money from agents, pay at merchants, pay services, top-up phone or buy bundles. Refiloe Mpobole