Technology Makes Cash Transfers Safer in Kenya
October 20, 2011
In the slums of Kenya's capital, residents and aid groups are using new technology to send and receive money
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Irene Okoth and her five children have been living on 50 cents a day in Nairobi's Korogocho settlement. That is what she earns recycling garbage from the nearby dump.
But now, her family will be getting some help from an aid group called Concern Worldwide International, through its "urban livelihoods" program. And Okoth will not have to travel to a bank or an aid center to get it.
The money will be put directly into her hands through a mobile telephone system called M-PESA, introduced in Kenya in 2007.
Okoth says it doesn't matter that she does not even own a phone.
"I will go to the M-PESA person. I will give her the SIM card to put for me in their phone. The secret PIN I will put it in myself and then I will remove the money," Okoth explained.
Through the M-PESA money transfer system, subscribers deposit cash through registered agents and notify recipients by text message to collect their money at any one of hundreds of convenient locations.
In a place like Korogocho, one of Nairobi's informal settlements known for its grinding poverty and crime, M-PESA is also the safest option.
Emily Macharia, who started up a shop in Korogocho through funding from Concern Worldwide, says people are more vulnerable to theft if an aid agency representative delivers money to them directly.
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