The £200 you sent to your mother has landed. It is sitting in her M-Pesa as roughly KES 35,000, and now she has to decide what to do with it. In July 2026 that decision changed a little, because nineteen Kenyan banks slashed what they charge to move money by PesaLink. Here is what that actually means for the family, and where it does not help.
The three doors
Once the money is in the wallet, she has three ways to spend it, and each has a different cost.
- Cash it out at an agent, so she is holding notes.
- Push it into her bank account.
- Leave it in the wallet and pay a shop, a bill, or a school directly from M-Pesa.
For years the default was door one. Sending money to a bank used to be slow and expensive, so the family cashed out and did the rest with paper money. That default is worth looking at again. Not because it was wrong then, but because two of the doors are cheaper now than they were, and the sender is often the one who has to point it out.
What changed in July
By late July 2026, nineteen banks had signed up to a new PesaLink price. (PesaLink is the interbank switch owned by Kenya’s banks; the roll-up started at Diamond Trust in April and reached the nineteen-bank mark in July.) Under the campaign name “Tuma Direct na Mbao”, transfers up to KES 1,000 are free, and transfers from KES 1,001 to KES 999,999 cost a flat KES 20. The old prices ran up to KES 250 on the top bands, depending on the bank.
The nineteen banks that have signed up: KCB, Absa, Stanbic, Diamond Trust, Prime, HFC, Access, Citibank, Commercial International Bank, Credit Bank, Ecobank, Guaranty Trust, Paramount, SBM, Victoria Commercial, Bank of Baroda, and the microfinance banks Faulu, Choice and Caritas.
Five of the biggest banks in the country have not signed up: Equity, Co-operative, Standard Chartered, NCBA, and I&M. On those five, PesaLink still runs the old ladder. A KES 30,000 transfer costs the customer around KES 60 at Equity or Co-operative, KES 80 at Standard Chartered, and KES 100 at NCBA. (I&M’s current tariff we could not verify from a primary source.) Still more than the KES 20 flat, but a long way from the old top-band KES 250.
That difference matters. The sentence “PesaLink is now cheaper than M-Pesa” is true if the family banks with one of the nineteen. On the five hold-outs it is not.
Where the PesaLink cut does not help
PesaLink moves money between two bank accounts. It does not start in an M-Pesa wallet. If the money is in your mother’s M-Pesa and she wants to send it to another person’s bank account, she has to move it into her own bank first. That first step has its own cost, and the cost depends on which bank she uses.
For most banks, the way to move money from an M-Pesa wallet into a bank account is to use the bank’s Paybill number inside M-Pesa. On the arrangement where the customer pays the fee (not the bank), a KES 30,000 move costs around KES 100. On smaller moves it is less.
One bank has a genuinely free route the other way around, but only for a specific product. KCB customers can move money between an M-Pesa wallet and a KCB M-PESA account, which is a savings sub-account inside the M-PESA menu itself, for nothing in either direction. That is not the same as a regular KCB current account, which still uses the normal Paybill route. Equity and Co-operative both offer an in-app pull from M-Pesa in their Equity Mobile and MCo-op Cash apps, but each charges roughly KES 30 to KES 50 for the service. It is a small fee, but it is not free.
So the real arithmetic for a wallet-to-someone-else’s-bank transfer is:
- Family uses the KCB M-PESA account, and recipient’s bank is in the nineteen: the whole thing costs KES 20.
- Family uses any other bank, but recipient’s bank is in the nineteen: the M-Pesa Paybill fee (around KES 100 on a large amount), plus KES 20 for PesaLink out.
- Recipient’s bank is one of the five hold-outs: the M-Pesa Paybill fee, plus whatever that bank’s old PesaLink tariff still says (KES 60 to KES 100 on a KES 30,000 move at the four we could verify).
Compare that to a cash-out at the agent, which costs KES 309 at the top of the ladder no matter how big the transfer. On a large move to a bank, the PesaLink route usually wins now, in a way it did not last year. On a small move it depends.
What is the money actually for?
The verdict is not “PesaLink is cheaper full stop”. The right route depends on what the money is going to be spent on, and this is where the sender in London can help the family in Nairobi think it through.
If it is for rent, and the landlord takes a bank transfer. This is where the PesaLink cut helps most. If your mother uses the KCB M-PESA account (the one inside the M-PESA menu, where the pull from the wallet is genuinely free), and the landlord’s bank is one of the nineteen, the whole rent transfer now costs KES 20. If she uses another bank, add the Paybill fee on top, which is around KES 100 on a KES 30,000 move. Either way, it is a cleaner route than a cash-out at the agent plus a trip to hand over notes.
If it is for rent, and the landlord wants cash. Cash-out at the agent, and hand it over. KES 309 at the top of the ladder for a single withdrawal. There is no cheaper route if cash is the requirement, because the fee is paid at the moment paper money leaves the wallet.
If it is for the electricity, water, or school fees. Do not cash out and do not move it to a bank. Pay it straight from the wallet to the biller’s PayBill number. Kenya Power sits on a PayBill setup where the biller pays the fee, not the customer, so the family pays nothing on top. Most schools and hospitals work the same way. Not every utility does, though. For Nairobi Water, or any biller you have not paid before, check the receipt on the first small payment before you assume it is free at your end. Our piece on Kenyan mobile-money fees walks the PayBill lever in more detail.
If it is for shopping at the market, the pharmacy, or the corner shop. Same answer, in a different door. Pay with Buy Goods to the till number, and the customer pays nothing. The merchant absorbs the small fee. The route to Buy Goods is covered in the cashing out mobile money map.
If it is going straight to another person, not a business. M-Pesa’s send-to-another-wallet fee caps at KES 108, no matter the size of the transfer, up to KES 250,000 per go. That has not changed since 2023, and Safaricom has not announced a change for 2026. If the other person only uses M-Pesa, this is still the plainest route.
Ask before you send
The KES 20 PesaLink flat is a real cut, but only for the bank-to-bank leg, and only if the family banks with one of the nineteen. Getting the money out of the wallet in the first place, and paying a merchant or a bill from the wallet, has not changed.
Before you press send in London, ask what the money is going to be spent on. If it is a bank transfer to a landlord and both banks are in the group of nineteen, tell your mother she can push it through PesaLink for KES 20. If it is a shop, a school or a utility, tell her to pay it straight from the wallet. If it is cash she needs to hand over, the agent is still the answer, and the top-band fee is still KES 309.
A one-line note in the same message that carries the transfer is often enough to save the family a few hundred shillings on the arrival side. That is the small thing the sender can do.
Before that message goes, our guide to the cheapest way to send money to Kenya from the UK covers which UK-side app to open and what a £200 send actually lands as in her wallet.
Corrections
- 2026-08-03: An earlier version of this page opened with “£200 you sent to your mother has landed. It is sitting in her M-Pesa as roughly KES 41,000”. At the current GBP/KES rate £200 lands closer to KES 35,000, not KES 41,000. The opener has been corrected.
- 2026-08-03: An earlier version said Equity and Co-operative bank apps pull money from an M-Pesa balance “for nothing”. Only the KCB M-PESA linked account (inside the M-PESA menu) is genuinely free; Equity Mobile and MCo-op Cash both charge roughly KES 30 to KES 50 for the pull. The paragraph and the arithmetic bullets below it have been rewritten so a sender does not tell the family to use the wrong route.
- 2026-08-03: An earlier version put the PesaLink cost on the five hold-out banks at “around KES 100 to KES 150” on a KES 30,000 transfer. The verified per-bank figures at KES 30,000 are around KES 60 at Equity or Co-operative, KES 80 at Standard Chartered, and KES 100 at NCBA (I&M unverified). The range and the source have been corrected.
- 2026-08-03: An earlier version attributed the PesaLink cut to an announcement “on 22 July 2026”. The tariff rolled out bank by bank from April 2026 and reached nineteen banks in late July; no primary source names a single 22 July announcement. The wording has been softened.
- 2026-08-03: An earlier version used Safaricom’s “Business Bouquet” and “Customer Bouquet” tariff names to describe the customer-pays and biller-pays PayBill setups. The two names were the wrong way round, and the trade press has often swapped them too. This page now describes the behaviour (who pays the fee) rather than naming the tariff.
- 2026-08-03: An earlier version put Nairobi Water on the biller-pays PayBill setup alongside Kenya Power. Kenya Power is confirmed on that setup; Nairobi Water we could not confirm from a primary source. The line has been softened.