As a public transport user, it is not uncommon to see one of the commuters taking out their phones to pay the tout using mobile money. Initially, touts were afraid to accept cashless transactions fearing commuters would reverse the mobile money transfers, sending them into losses. So the question we are left pondering on is, “What happened to Kenya’s cashless public transport payment system?”The cashless matatu payment initiative was a policy move by the government via the ministry of transport to clean up the industry. The rules were aimed at formalizing the matatu industry, weeding out inefficiency, corruption and bribing culture by mandating cashless commuter payments. In April 2013, Equity Bank officially partnered with Google to introduce BebaPay, a cashless card payment solution.

Source: The Star January 02, 2020 20:37 UTC