Product characteristics that contributes to the slow adoption of yu cash: a case study of Essar telecom Kenya limited

Abstract

Today Kenya boosts itself as a remarkable leader in Mobile money transactions in the world.Over 17 million Kenyans, about two thirds of the adult population, use the service and around 25 percent of the country’s gross national product flows through it.Mobile money transfer service in Kenya has seen an exponential growth and acceptance even among the poor. It’s in this pretext that Yu mobile, the third largest telecommunication service provider by subscriber base introduced its own money transfer platform dubbed Yu cash. This was in its quest towards delivering universal access to financial services through innovative mobile banking and payments services, the company targeted its growing Kenyan subscriber base with an intention of making it an African wide platform.Since its inception in 2009 the service has realized slow growth, acceptance and popularity among its targeted consumer base across the country despite the widespread usage of mobile phones in Kenya. The purpose of the study was to provide valid and credible information as to what product characteristics led to slow adoption of Yu cash service in Kenya. To address issues specific to this study a case study research design was adopted in which an interview guide was used collect data while content analysis was used to analyze data. The findings revealed that Yu cash is not widespread in Kenya. Most distinctive factors that were a contributor was that the service had few agents, was not convenient and operated only in specific areas and low product awareness among its customers. The study also revealed various challenges faced by Yu cash and also highlighted areas of improvement. The most notable ones were-; the service provider was challenged to roll out its network to provide stability in the systems and network in general, faster resolution to customer queries and roll out its distribution channels among others as detailed in the study.