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Leading financial services provider, Zamara Group, has launched Africa’s first pension/savings plan on WhatsApp.
The latest innovation will allow customers to open, access and transact with Zamara’s Fahari Retirement Plan account via WhatsApp.
Speaking during the launch, Zamara Group Chief Executive Officer Sundeep Raichura said the development highlighted Zamara’s quest to accelerate and enable digital and financial inclusion in Kenya by providing easy access to financial solutions. “With a reach of more than 12m users in Kenya — more than any other app in the country — using WhatsApp we are uniquely positioned to bring more people into the pensions and insurance ecosystem” said Raichura.
“We will leverage this messaging platform to help address the challenges of financial literacy and deliver micro pensions in Kenya” added Raichura.
Retirement Benefits Authority, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Nzomo Mutuku lauded the efforts by Zamara saying, “Financial inclusion empowers individuals with the ability to have the right tools to save and manage their money wisely. This innovation is a first in the country and we are optimistic that it will spur voluntary, individual savings not only for the informal sector majority of whom do not have a savings/retirement plan but and the youth and general whilst helping change the narrative and perspective of savings in the country.
Highlighting the challenges of financial inclusion, Mr Raichura said “As a financial services provider, we face a number of roadblocks, such as the level of presence we have in different parts of our country and the number of salespeople we can deploy and this has limited the number of people we can reach.” ”Using this platform, we will be able to reach the untapped market segments, particularly the youth and the informal sector and enable them to access sachet sized pension and insurance solutions through a simple, reliable, private and secure experience”.
The Fahari Retirement Plan is a fully digitized pension/savings solution which is accessible to any Kenyan through multiple channels including USSD code, Website and Agents. And now through WhatsApp.
Fahari is registered with the Retirement Benefits Authority and the Kenya Revenue Authority. Any Fahari Retirement Plan transaction via WhatsApp is secured through the end-to-end encryption for calls and messages. Critical information such as your One-Time login Password (OTP), payment instruction, account balance etc. will always be shared as an SMS to the member’s mobile number registered with Fahari pension plan.