Airtel Money users can now transact up to half a million shillings.
This is after Airtel Money Kenya Ltd, the Airtel Kenya offshoot that oversees the mobile money platform, got the nod from the financial services industry regulator, the Central Bank of Kenya, to raise the daily transaction limit from the Kshs 300,000 limit that has prevailed since 2020 to Kshs 500,000.
Airtel Money’s announcement came the same day that similar transaction limits kicked in for M-Pesa users. Safaricom had earlier shared news of its M-Pesa service getting the same regulatory approval to allow a higher ceiling for users of its mobile money service.
“The increase in the daily transaction limit is expected to benefit a wide range of Airtel Money customers, including businesses, government agencies, among others. It will also support the growth of the digital economy in Kenya,” Airtel Money says in a statement.
While Airtel Money doesn’t say it in their communication to the press, the rise in the daily transaction limits should come with a corresponding rise in the amounts that users can store in their wallets.
Safaricom’s M-Pesa remains the dominant mobile money service in Kenya with a 96.5% share of the 38.4 million mobile money users as of March 2023, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya. Airtel Money is a distant second with a paltry 3.4% market share while Telkom Kenya’s T-Kash makes for a terribly poor showing with a negligible 0.1% market share.
As is the case with M-Pesa, every single transaction is subject to a limit of Kshs 150,000. Airtel Money users, just like their M-Pesa counterparts, can transact multiple times up to the limit of Kshs 500,000 daily.
