Easy Taxi Launches Cashless payment option, ‘Easy Taxi Pay’

VENTURES AFRICA – Easy Taxi, Kenya’s fastest growing taxi hailing mobile phone application, will today launch its go cashless initiative, availing customers the opportunity to utilize a number of payment options including its biggest and most patronized, M-Pesa.

With Easy Taxi Pay, the new cashless payment app, customers can add their credit or debit card details and pay for a ride by simply tapping their smart phone screen. The application also provides a detailed summary of the payment information after each ride via email. “… With this new mode of payment, we hope to further enhance our customer’s convenience and overall experience,” said Lauren Gray, the Marketing Director at Easy Taxi.

To ensure that all transactions made with Easy Taxi are safe and secure, Easy Taxi is working with Amsterdam-based payment services company Adyen, to process the credit and debit transactions. However, a look into Kenya’s money transfer space could also provide a trustworthy and secure platform, one that is trusted by a significant segment of Kenya’s population.

Launched in 2007 by Vodafone for Safaricom, M-Pesa has proved to be an instant hit. It has become the most sought-after payment platform in Kenya less than a decade after its unveiling. It has also registered over 17 million accounts while being touted as Africa’s unique solution to money challenges- and now being adopted in parts of Europe and Asia.

Given its overwhelming success in East Africa’s commercial capital, Kenya, M-Pesa is sure to play a key role in fostering the growth of Easy Taxi’s cashless scheme. As most Kenyans already own an M-Pesa account, this should enable easy deployment of information unto the cab hauling app.

Also, since the taxi app will be used largely via mobile platforms, it automatically hands M-Pesa the advantage over traditional banking apps because it is powered by Kenya’s leading mobile network operator, Safaricom.

Safaricom controls almost 70 percent of the country’s mobile space, accounting for more than 20 million users and is dominantly present in the country’s major cities.

Easy Taxi might have driven down to the Netherlands to ensure the soundness of the new payment system, but the service’s most promising promoter may lie well within the borders of Kenya.