Why did I start PesaKit?
As a daily M-pesa customer, I regularly need to top up my account to pay bills, send money to the village?? (back home) or to relatives in need. I’m sure many of us have been in the unfortunate situation where a family emergency arises and you need to first top up your M-pesa account in order to send cash. Back in April 2017, my cousin had a boda boda accident and the private hospital she was taken to on Mombasa road needed money to attend to her. Since she didn’t have enough cash on her to be assisted, she reached out to me in a time sensitive situation.
I had to go to seven (7) different mpesa agents to complete a deposit of Ksh 25,000! Imagine the frustration each time the agent told me “sina float” or “float haitoshi”. Heading back home after 40 minutes of anxiety and frustration got me thinking; How can I solve this systematic issue? Given my personal frustration, I set out to explore how agent networks operate.
My motivation was to try eliminate the anxiety I went through to help a loved one and knowing I didn’t want to go through that s#!t again! If I put my design and tech skills to work, then no one else should experience the same.
My mission, now PesaKit’s mission is to empower every mobile money agent on the planet to achieve and deliver more digital financial services to the underbanked.
Agents without float are perennially frustrating to mobile money providers and their customers alike.
After a year of private beta, I am excited to launch our public beta on July 22nd to ease liquidity (cash & float) pressures for the next 10,000 agents.
