Safaricom has today launched a new app that is set to help its over 100,000 merchant customers with Lipa an M-PESA services. This app will act as a portal to help them better manage their businesses. The app should allow business owners to withdraw funds from their merchant accounts to their M-PESA, Bank accounts or at an agent, among many more features. Essentially, this app comes to complement and further streamline the current USSD (*234#) menu. Currently, this USSD menu been providing Lipa Na M-PESA merchants access to, and the ability to manage their till and to make transactions. Through the app, business owners with Till numbers can now use their accounts to send money to other M-PESA customers. This effectively allows Businesses to pay its employees, pay its suppliers, and much more, all through the app. This new app also offers Business owners a bunch of new Management features such as an overview of how various tills or outlets are performing in the case of businesses with multiple stores or outlets. The app also offers an easy-to-use visualizations of various metrics such as cash inflows and outflows for the business with detailed reports and visual charts to help Business owners see how they’re doing. These include money-in and money-out charts, store overview and frequently used Lipa Na M-PESA Tills and PayBills. The app, dubbed M-PESA for Business is immediately available on the Google Play Store for any user to download. You will, however, need your M-PESA Business credentials to log into the app and use the features. Safaricom says that the same will be available for iOS users on the Apple App Store in the coming days. For businesses that would like to get a Till Number to take advantage of the ever-growing Lipa na M-PESA platform, Safaricom has provided a new website that will handle all such applications. The portal can be accessed at m-pesaforbusiness.co.ke. The company says that the new “M-PESA for Business” app will be immediately available to these businesses once their application is processed and a Till Number allocated.
