High Court judge Mugure Thande issued interim orders Thursday suspending the reintroduction of a bank to M-PESA charges pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed by Nairobi resident Mr Moses Wafula.
In his petition, Mr Wafula says M-PESA Paybill Services are outsourced. It is described as a bipartite (two-party) business engagement.
“If the Banks continue riding on this M-Pesa pay bill infrastructure and the courts ultimately find the M-Pesa pay bill platform to be in contravention of the constitution, the impact will be higher; more funds from the public would have been lost and it may be a lot more difficult to task the banks to refund such funds collected from the public,” Wafula’s petition reads.
The case will be mentioned on January 23, 2023.
In December 2022, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) announced the reintroduction of charges on transactions between mobile money and bank accounts. This became effective in 2023.
“The revised maximum charges for transfers from bank accounts to mobile money wallets will be reduced by on average up to 61 per cent, and mobile money wallet to bank account by on average up to 47 per cent,” the statement read.
The charges were waived on March 16, 2020, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic with the expansion of the payments ecosystem.
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