In 2022, Safaricom finally launched an M-PESA product for young people aged between 10-17 years. Named M-PESA GO, the mobile money product has onboarded 2.9 million children, which is a big number, although M-PESA has long been a popular service in terms of revenue and market share.
“M-PESA Go aims to give parents more control over their children’s use of mobile money wallet. By year end, we had onboarded 2 910 000 child accounts,” Safaricom said in its Sustainability report for the FY2023.
Basically, M-PESA go allows children to use M-PESA services, but with some limitations. They can send and receive money, use Lipa Na M-PESA and other merchant payments, buy airtime, data, and manage their accounts. However, they cannot pay betting firms or access loan products such as Fuliza, M-Shwari and KCB M-PESA. They cannot withdraw money from an agent as that requires a national ID for identification – which they do not have. Lastly, they cannot make payments to political parties.
Registration
Parents can onboard their kids to M-PESA GO through this online portal. However, this is only possible if parents already have SIM cards already being used by their kids. Alternatively, they can visit a Safaricom shop/agent, where they can buy a SIM card (registered using a parent’s credentials) for their children and register them for M-PESA Go.
Parents can have up to 4 M-PESA GO accounts under their profiles. To see a child’s profile, a parent can dial *334# > My Account > Manage Junior Account > Manage Junior Account Relationship>View Junior Account List.
Kids can access M-PESA Go services using the M-PESA app or via STK.
