MASERU – CUSTOMERS of VCL Financial Services (VCLFS) will receive interest payments in their M-pesa accounts today.
VCLFS says the payments are for interests accumulated from October 2017 to December 2021.
The money is on interest that accrued in the Trust Account that VCLFS, as a mobile money issuer, is obliged to keep in with commercial banks.
The amount in the trust account is equivalent to the outstanding balance of all electronic money holders.

This technically means the balance reflecting in your M-pesa account is held in a Trust account with a bank.
That money earns interest which, according to the law, belongs to customers.
It is that interest that M-pesa's customers will share.
Eligible customers are those using M-pesa to send money (person to person transactions), make withdrawals, buy goods, pay bills and buy airtime and bundles.

Those using the platform for transactions such as deposits, IMT and card to wallet are excluded from receiving the interest. Agents, super agents, merchants and business partners will not benefit from the interest.
The company said the share of the interest will be calculated based on the customer's daily transactions which is known as 'Throughput'.
This Throughput will be calculated as their total debit and credit entries, the company said in a statement.

A customer's throughput is then calculated as a percentage of the total trust Account throughput, the resulting percentage is then multiplied by the total interest accumulated, which determines the share of a customer on the total interest allocation.
“A customer's throughput is then calculated as a percentage of the total Trust account throughput, the resulting percentage is then multiplied by the total interest accumulated, which determines the share of a customer on the total interest allocation,” said the statement.
The company however cautioned that the calculation doesn't consider the amount held in the customer's account.

“Only the qualifying transaction types made by the customers over the period stated will be considered”.
The interests will be paid quarterly.
Although the announcement has created a buzz of excitement, it is important to note that these will not be huge amounts. The amount is shared among hundreds of thousands of customers.
M-pesa has an estimated 800 000 customers.

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