Safaricom to Pay Dividends Via M-Pesa

Safaricom’s 829,000 shareholders have until the end of September to register to receive their dividends via the popular M-Pesa mobile payment service. Bankele reports on the considerale money that Safaricom will save while eating their own dogfood:

At just 0.10 shillings per share, it will not amount to much, with several thousand shareholder receiving a divided of Kshs 22 (~$0.30) , and if shareholders get paid by bank cheque, the traditional method of paying dividend up to now, it will cost them more to do so (typically Kshs. 50-100), than the cheque is worth. Paying my m-pesa will reduce the cost to Safaricom and its investors – as it’s a good bet that a vast majority of shareholders are also M-pesa users (there are over 5 million registered).

If the venture is successful, we can look forward to other publicly listed companies doing the same, either with their own mobile money services (in the case of mobile operators), or in partnerships with mobile operators (diverse private actors).