Safaricom has introduced a new payment option allowing its customers to convert their data bundle balance into cash.

The product dubbed Lipa na data will allow Safaricom customers to use data balance to pay for goods and services at selected merchants.

The Lipa na data product targets both Prepaid and Postpay customers but is only accessible to Postpay customers with a data balance of 5GB and above and Prepaid customers with No Expiry bundles above 5GB.

To opt in, customers will be required to dial *544*34#. Qualifying customers can pay for various products, including groceries, fuel, bills, etc, via Paybill or Till Number.

The latest product comes with a bundles calculator, a feature that allows eligible customers to know the amount of money worth their data balance. For example, Ksh 500 is equivalent to 7692.21MBs.

Safaricom launches new M-Pesa payment method

The bundles calculator will further help customers to check if they have enough data bundles to pay for their goods and services.

The latest development comes a few weeks after the telco launched a QR payment method that will run under the Central Bank of Kenya’s (CBK) Universal QR Code.

“The Kenya Universal QR Code is live on the M-Pesa App, M-Pesa Business App, and my Safaricom App. We will also enable automatic QR code creation on the Lipa Na M-Pesa Merchant Portal and through APIs on Daraja,” said Safaricom in a statement.

The issuance of the QR code standards by CBK seeks to provide a framework to guide the current and future payment services.