Customer Perception on M-pesa Services: a Case Study of Kitengela and Athi River Townships

Abstract

Perception is the process, by which one selects, organizes and interprets information inputs to create meaningful picture of the world (Kotler and Kevin, 2007). Due to the high cost in money transfer especially in the formal financial sector such as commercial banks and Western Union, which require both sender and recipient to hold accounts and maintain minimum balances in these accounts, pay ledger fees and other charges, people have been looking for cheap means of receiving, sending and saving money without incurring huge cost associated with registered financial institutions. This is the market need that M-Pesa, Safaricom Ltd’s money transfer service sought to fill since its inception. Since its roll-out in Kenya, M-Pesa market penetration has been due to the creation of a highly popular, affordable payment service with only limited involvement of a bank. The study sought to find out the M-Pesa customers’ perception of the service and the challenges they encounter in using the service. The study took on a descriptive study design on a target population comprising of 50 MPesa outlets in Kitengela and Athi river townships and a sample size of five M-Pesa customers were selected from each using simple random sampling technique. The study used semi-structured questionnaires. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data through the use of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and the data presented in frequency distribution tables to measure dimensions with the highest concentration and bar charts while the explanations were presented in prose.