With the new partnership, transactions made using Ria will be a lot more seamless. This means that customers who send money to M-PESA through Ria will be informed of the applicable exchange rate and transaction fee before performing the transaction. Also with this partnership, funds sent through Ria will be automatically reflected immediately in a customer’s M-PESA balance. This saves everyone a lot of hustle in the form of currency conversions. This also means users don’t have to visit an outlet to receive money sent to them; unlike services like WesternUnion and MoneyGram. Speaking at the launch event, Safaricom’s Chief Executive Officer, Michael Joseph said that this will make it convenient for M-PESA customers to access cash instantly across the world. Ria is very popular in many western markets including the United States of America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, in addition to the majority of European countries. Kenyans abroad are increasingly opting to remit funds back home using M-PESA. This is especially due to Safaricom’s push towards opening up M-PESA to more international financial platforms. Safaricom Ria partnership is yet another move in this direction. In the past, we have seen Safaricom partnering with Western Union to enable global money transfers via the M-Pesa Global. M-PESA also works well with PayPal, and AliExpress.
