5 things that you need to know about Safaricom’s Mpesa Go

Staff Writer·
Business

Safaricom has M-PESA GO a product that is meant for children between the age of 10-17 years to enable them to utilize select M-PESA services. The account is acquired and linked to their parents or guardians to be able to provide parental guidance. 

Here are some important facts about the product;

1. Registration

To register new sim cards, the parent or guardian is supposed to visit the Safaricom outlet with the following documents.

  1. Parent or guardian active SIM card registered on M-PESA
  2. Valid childbirth certificate
  3. The parent or guardian’s National ID/Passport/ Military ID/Alien ID

In the event that a parent or a guardian already has a line that is being used by the junior, they can use the self-onboarding portal to convert the sim card to an M-PESA Go line. A parent or guardian is allowed a maximum of four M-PESA GO accounts per ID.

After registration, a parent or guardian can follow these steps to enable Parental Control of the M-PESA Go account.

  1. Dial the USSD *334#
  2. Select My Account > Manage Junior Account
  3. Manage Junior Relationship > Add Junior Customer
  4. Enter Junior’s mobile number followed by the child’s date of birth
  5. Enter M-PESA PIN. You will receive a notification of the successful addition of the Junior account.

2. Parental Control

As a parent, one will be able to control the services can be accessed by your child on the account. To do this, one needs to dial *334# after which they will get the following options.

  1. Manage services: Enable Services & Disable services
  2. Manage Junior Relationships: Add or Remove Junior Accounts & View Junior Accounts list
  3. View Junior Account Info: Query account balance & View the last 5 transactions

 There is no limit to the number of times services can be enabled or disabled. 

3. Services Allowed 

  1. Send money
  2. Lipa Na M-PESA (PAYBILL AND BUY GOODS)
  3. Buy Airtime and Bundles
  4. Receive cash from another customer or bank
  5. My account

Restricted Services  

  1. Withdraw money
  2. Loans and savings (KCB M-PESA, Fuliza, Mshwari and other loan app)
  3. Payment to betting companies
  4. Payment to political parties

Transactional Limit 

The current M-PESA transactional limits (Daily limit of KES 300,000) will apply to minors’ accounts. However, parents will be able to set a maximum limit allowed for each of their minor accounts such as daily, weekly or monthly limits. The current M-PESA charges/tariffs will also apply to the M-PESA GO account.

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