Little, Ola Energy in a deal to save drivers, customers payment transaction cost

The over one million customers on Kenya’s taxi hailing app Little, has something to smile about.

This follows a deal between Little and oil marketer, Ola, to allow customers to use a convenient payment service called Little Pay, a payment service within the Little SuperApp platform, to purchase various oil products and other goods and services sold at Ola.

The solution targets to cut down transaction cost for drivers and other users while at the same time boosting the war against the spread of Covid-19 through promotion of cashless payments.

“Many of our drivers earn revenue from cashless and corporate trips. The money sits in the Little Driver account within their Little Driver App. In order for the driver to transact at various merchant locations, they would need to move the money to their mobile money wallet,” says Mr Kamal Budhabhatti, the Chief Executive Officer, Little.

“With Little Pay, drivers don’t need to move money out of their Little App in order to purchase services, the new partnership will see many of our drivers and customers save from transaction costs linked to electronic cash transfers,” he added.

Kamal further stated that they’re in the process of extending Fuliza Fuel kind of service based on the data we have about our 100,000+ Drivers.

He noted that customers will also be able to pay directly from their bank accounts to the merchant accounts by using their Little Wallet or by linking Visa/Mastercard to the Little App.

Kenyans moved Ksh.5.21 trillion through their phones last year, an equivalent of half of the country’s estimated GDP, spurred by relief measures on mobile phone payments to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Data by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) shows the total transactions rose by 20 percent from Ksh.4.34 trillion the previous year.

This means that an average of Ksh.14.27 billion was transacted on mobile phones daily between January and December 2020 — some Ksh.2.81 billion higher than the Sh11.91 billion daily average in 2019.