Safaricom’s mobile money platform and service M-Pesa has become one of the first of its kind in the world to be certified by GSMA through its new Mobile Money Certification scheme.
The M-Pesa platform is a recipient of the certification following assessment in several key areas which included international best practices in customer data protection, mitigation against money laundering, terrorist financing and fraud risks, transparency of charges as well as overall stability in the procedures and processes which include a reliable customer service, agent and staff management among others.
In February last year, Safaricom started notifying users of any charges incurred in a transaction through SMS and soon after started relaying the same information through its mobile app. This was part of compliance with directives from the industry regulator, the Communications Authority of Kenya.
Other initiatives by the telecommunications company like Hakikisha (which lets users see the name of the other party in a transaction as well as request for reversals in the event an error is committed) and the simplification and opening of the M-Pesa API to third parties to enable things like digital payments in Viusasa, transactions through PayPal and making purchases on the Play Store using M-Pesa, increased transparency and contributed a lot towards the GSMA Mobile Money Certification.
The certification is supposed to be a mark of confidence, on the part of the customer, that the mobile money platform they are using is safe and can be trusted.
“It is based on independent assessments of a provider’s ability to deliver secure and reliable services, to protect the rights of consumers and to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism. These efforts are measured against global industry best practice, and a pass mark of 100% is required,” a statement from GSMA reads.
