M-Pesa Pre-Pay Safari Card; the safer way to online transactions

SAFE ONLINE TRANSACTION IN KENYA

Due to the increased use of technology; many businesses desire to trade internationally. Buying and selling of products across the borders of different continents is now a need than it was a few years ago hence shrinking the entire world into a palm-sized global village!

Business entrepreneurs today desire to trade with their fellows far and wide. Sometimes this kind of trading involves buying and selling eBooks or huge products and machinery; there are no limits in online trading. Not anymore.

The need to fully pay for a product or service or even to down pay for the same has left many people in search for safer ways to conduct the online transactions.

A few years ago, the most common way of buying a product or services online was through the use of credit cards. But this came with its own share of woes which was largely contributed by hackers who broke into companies’ servers and stole credit cards information belonging to the companies’ clients and hence the clients’ hard earned cash.

To some great extent the customers lost huge amounts of cash and as a result most of these clients and would-be clients shied away from online transactions. What a drawback in e-business!

In some countries, banks issuing credit cards currently follow closely the online transactions that their clients get involved in so as to protect their clients from the hackers. They also educate their clients accordingly so that they are able to make informed decisions when transacting online.  Some banks even go as far as blocking the credit cards should they be suspicious of some seemingly unusual activities involving the client’s credit card and online payments. It then becomes the client’s business to follow up with the bank and assure the bank that they are fully accountable for the online activities that involves their cards. Painful but very good!

For a long while now, credit cards are not only the only way to transact online. A great number of Visa debit cards are now used to transact online payments as well.

Using a Visa debit card is a viable method of paying for online transactions. The threat in using a debit card happens when the hacker is able to steal the debit card details and access the bank account of the client hence being able to mysteriously withdraw cash from the client’s bank account posing as the client.

This leaves the online trader with the option of using prepaid Visa cards that are not locked to any bank account at all. This means that the prepaid card is pre-loaded with the amount of cash required for the transactions that need to be done and then used to pay for those transactions. The prepaid card can be left empty after the transaction or blocked immediately after the transaction. Isn’t that amazing?

In Kenya, one such Visa Prepaid card is the famous brainchild of Kenya’s largest cellular network, Safaricom and a top bank in the country, I&M Bank.  The M-Pesa Pre-Pay Safari Card. This card resembles an ordinary Visa electron card physically and give almost the same services as an ordinary debit card but with one major difference that makes it the best card to use for your online transactions; it has no bank account linked to it though it is acquired from I&M Bank. Funny huh?
 
What does this mean to the online traders in Kenya? You no longer have to fear buying and selling online anymore. 

The other unique features of this card other than the fact that it is prepaid include:

1.       Cash is loaded directly from M-pesa, the Safaricom’s money transfer service. This allows any Safaricom subscriber to easily load cash into the card using the paybill option in the M-pesa menu on the subscriber’s phone. 

2.       The M-Pesa Pre-Pay Safari Card can be used to withdraw cash from any Visa ATM worldwide. This helps the client to take off any remaining cash from the card in case there is need to do so.

3.       The card is also viable for making purchases from any Visa merchants’ shops, restaurants and supermarkets like the famous Tuskys Supermarket.

4.       The best of them all, The M-Pesa Pre-Pay Safari Card is the most friendly and safe card to use while making online purchases. It gives you free online access to your online activities such as last ten transactions, statement, activating and deactivating the card among other facilities. This is done through I&M Bank’s website in the pre-paid section of the website. 

5.       One more plus for The M-Pesa Pre-Pay Safari Card is that it can be used to verify the Paypal account for the bearer of the card once it is activated on the I&M Bank’s website

The M-Pesa Pre-Pay Safari Card is easily purchased from the I&M Bank branches and Safaricom shops countrywide, there is no reason not to have one leave alone trading insecurely online if you are living in Kenya.  It actually takes less than 2 hours on a busy day at the bank bearing in mind that Safaricom network rarely experiences hitches.

 The goodies about this card are not left for those residing in Kenya only. This card is actually an international pre-paid Visa card that needs only to be pre-loaded with funds, in Kenya Shillings that can be used to by a card owner to withdraw cash in any currency from over 1.6 million Visa ATMs worldwide as well as to make purchases at over 28 million shops and other merchant outlets worldwide. The M-Pesa Pre-Pay Safari Card can be reloaded for continued usage using your M-Pesa and residual balances can also be refunded.

Don’t go wrong in running your online business, pay for your goods and services using your M-Pesa Pre-Pay Safari Card now!