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Tuwakenya is Re-Branding to Kinyaa.Com

by 1327459133

Posted on Saturday, April 22, 2017 07:08 PM

It has been a long time, Tuwakenya has posted since 2013, we were even offline from sometime in 2015, but now we are back, and ever more refreshed. We are calling ourselves Kinyaa.Com and our refreshed mission is simple, to share and learn.

Let's share and learn from each other on Business, Tech, Facts, Sports, Science and most importantly, Elections. Don't be afraid to ask the difficult questions, we shall be here to answer them.

In case you are wondering what Kinyaa means, Kinyaa is the original spelling or rather the correct spelling of our beloved country Kenya, for more details, check out this wikipedia page.

Mshwari Inside Out, Everything you need to know

by simon

Posted on Thursday, November 29, 2012 12:37 AM

I am sure you have heard all the buzz on the new banking service pioneered by CBA and Safaricom. The move has seen CBA break into the market at the bottom of the pyramid, a niche it had not explored before. I gave the service a try and here is a summary of my experience.

Setting up Mshwari on your phone

Step one: Update the Mpesa Menu

- Under the main Mpesa Menu, select 'my account' then select 'Update menu'. This will prompt you to enter your Mpesa password and after few seconds, the new menu is available and there is 'Mshwari'. 

Step two: Activating Mshwari

- Select Mshwari on the main Mpesa menu, and you will find only 2 items under it i.e 'Activate' and 'Terms and condition'. Select 'Activate'. This will prompt for your mpesa password again and may take longer as mshwari is experiencing a lot of traffic. never the less, you wait untill you receive an SMS confirming the activation.

Step three: Updating Mshwari Menu

- You will neeed to repeat Step one again to get the complete Mshwari Menu. If you have used other m-banking services such as m-kesho, you will find mshwari very similar; if you havent, it is still very simple for the average mpesa user.

So what is so good about Mshwari, The Pros

1. No transaction charges. This is a winner for me. I happen to be a major m-kesho customer but I always lose 30 bob every time I withdraw from Mkesho to Mpesa. But now that is history. Am not saying I wont use mkesho any more, look at the cons below.
2. CBA, This is a reputable bank and I feel safer knowing my money is in their custody than how I would feel if it was held by some of the other banks we know so very well!!??!!
3. The loan. Wow, this is a killer. So many times I have found myself in need of some cash and no nearby ATMs. That is why I used M-kesho to transfer cash from Bank to Mkesho and then Mkesho to Mpesa. I can assure you this is a cumbersome process, the bank's m-banking services are based on USSD and have a very high failure rate, you have to retry like 5 times sometimes before it goes through. Now all I have todo is get that 1k loan on m-kesho which has an interest rate of only 7.5% flat rate.  This is disguised as loan processing fee to allow muslims to use the service, which is awesome since I would hate to see my muslim brothers miss out on this revolution. It is repayable within 30 days. There is a caveat here, some people have praised the service for a low interest rate forgetting that this is 7.5% per month which is equivalent to 7.5*12 which is 90% per year, definitely the highest in the market. Safaricom has clearly stated an extra 7.5% will be charged for every extra month (for loan defaulters)
4. Money saved in Mshwari shall earn an interest rate of 5% per year, this not winner, but it is still  something, probably below inflation rate but still something.
5. Those are enough reasons to use mshwari but reason number one deserves a repeat! No Transaction Charges.

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