By Jumah Kakomo
Bank of Uganda has allowed Safe Boda Company to officially use its Mobile Money service dubbed “Safeboda mobile money wallet” to expand its services digitally.
With this new innovation “SafeBoda mobile money wallet” will evolve to compete with already existing mobile money transfer services like MTN Momo mobile money, Airtel Money among others since the service is already active on the “SafeBoda App” whereby customers are able to do more at little or no charges on in-app transfer services.
Safeboda since its inception in 2014 has gradually developed from the app only allowing its customers to order riders, food, make deliveries, buy airtime, and withdraw money, to now a concept of mobile money service that will help Ugandans move forward.
The trusted and trained community of drivers has been helping people move around the city from time to time since 2014. Getting to work, going for a meeting in rush hours, visiting friends across town, leaving the bar late in the night, SafeBoda would be one of the best options to get to your destination safely.
Mackay Aomu, director national payment system department at Bank of Uganda (BOU) who was the chief guest during an official launch of the initiative on Wednesday this week in Kampala said Bank of Uganda found out that safe Boda wallet has all the necessary requirements and has no threats to operate in the country.
”Cash is expensive and still a predominant method of payment in Uganda but COVID-19 has helped to draw people towards cashless transactions hence giving a big opportunity to technology”. He said.
Mackay says the initiative is good and useful to keep the money stay in payments network as well as de-congesting banking halls amidst the Covid 19 pandemic.
He however appealed to safe boda management to sensitize the public about this initiative and its relevancy because cash money is expensive yet e-money system saves time and risks.
Rapa Thompson Ricky co-founder and director of operations safe boda said SafeBoda is one of the safest ways to travel whether day or night and the company is regulated by the Bank of Uganda to operate its payments and financial services thus they guarantee that people’s money is safe on the app.
“All parcel deliveries are insured, and you can shop right from home or office without having to step into a restaurant, market, or supermarket” He said.
He added that the initiative provides a cheap ecosystem that allows customers to send money across networks for free as well as drastically reducing the cost of withdrawing these funds.
