Wrap-Up: Our pick of main stories, Wednesday July 15th, 2015

Businesses can now move up to Sh50m per transaction via M-Pesa…IBM, RTI International to transform schools in Mombasa County through Big Data technologies….Airtel to provide free insurance to customers….StarTimes to expand coverage to 8 more locations in Kenya before year end…and much more.

Businesses can now move up to Kshs 50 million per transaction via M-Pesa

Business customers and M-Pesa agents can now transfer millions of shillings via the platform and access it immediately in cash. This follows the integration of M-Pesa platform with the Standard Chartered payment system to enable users bypass the process of transferring funds to cash which takes minimum six hours. Lamin Manjang, CEO, Standard Chartered Kenya said the agreement allows merchants to transfer a maximum of Sh50 million per transaction which can be withdrawn by the recipient immediately.

IBM, RTI International to transform schools in Mombasa County through Big Data technologies

IBM and RTI are developing and testing intelligent systems to capture data about schools in Mombasa County, Kenya. The data captured will help the researchers understand educational challenges in schools as well as come up with real time decisions in relation to the findings. This comes after RTI International and IBM’s Africa research lab announced a partnership to deploy big data analytics and cognitive technologies to help transform development approaches in Africa and around the world as well as understanding educational challenges in schools.

Airtel Kenya to provide free insurance to customers

Airtel, has partnered with Pan Africa Life Assurance and MicroEnsure to launch a free insurance product which will offer Airtel customers in Kenya life, accident and hospitalisation insurance with increasing benefits based on their monthly airtime usage. The product, which is tagged Airtel Insurance is packaged to deliver affordable insurance services and encourage insurance culture among Kenyans. The product is open to all Kenyan residents of 18 years and above. To register for the product, Airtel customers will be required to simply dial *336# from their mobile phones.

Kenya’s Uhasibu named 3rd runner-up for Zambezi Prize

Uhasibu, an internet (cloud-based) accounting package for SMEs, developed specifically for the SMEs present in Kenya, has been named as the 3rd Runner-Up for The Zambezi Prize. The announcement was made through the company’s (Uhasibu’s) newsletter, which read: “Uhasibu is very proud to announce that we were named 3rd runner-up and was awarded 6,500USD as cash prize. We are very grateful to The Zambezi Prize sponsors for the opportunity and recognition of our work towards improving financial inclusion in East Africa.”

StarTimes to expand coverage to 8 more locations in Kenya before year end

StarTimes has announced plans to expand its coverage to 8 more locations in the country in the next 6 months. Among the locations targeted for coverage before the end of the year include Kapenguria, Naivasha, Machakos, Nanyuki and Embu. Samuel Mburu, DVBT2 Maintenance Engineer at Pan African Network Group (PANG) which operates the StarTimes payTV brand, said the Chinese firm is currently doing site acquisition.