Nairobi, Tuesday 27^th September 2011: Family Bank has launched a revolutionary mobile payment platform which will enable tenants pay their rent through their phones. The new solutions M-Kodi, which will leverage on the Pesa Pap platform will enable landlords, receive rent directly to their accounts.

“The real estate sector of our economy has been growing in leaps and bounds.It is a big driver of our economy today and indeed the banking sector. We want to work with you to grow the real estate sector into an vibrant sector of our economy and the launch on M-Kodi will greatly support this sector,” said Peter Munyiri, Managing Director, Family Bank.

Munyiri said that through several interactions with their customers, the bank realized that queuing in banking hall to pay rents or collection of cash by the landlords at every end of every month had its share of challenges and most of tenants and landlords alike would wish for a smoother process to minimize these recurrent issues . This realization prompted the development of M-Kodi, which will help address some of these issues that continue to impact negatively on the business of their customers and other Kenyans.

“When developing this product, we acknowledged the concerns of both the landlord and the tenant and developed a solution to suit these two critical players, said Munyiri.

For the tenants, they will enjoy timely remittance of rent from a location of your convenience. This will eliminate the hassle of tracing your landlord, visiting a local bank and eliminate the risk involved with carrying cash to pay your landlord.

For the landlords, M-Kodi will offer them the opportunity to streamline their banking as they will receive a confirmation from the bank as soon a payment is affected. This product will also play a big role in unlocking huge savings in way of time.

“Family Bank is committed to the growth of the Real Estate Industry, and one way of ensuring this Industry grows in addition to lending to the developers, is to ensure that the rental fees management is done efficiently. The real estate investor will be able to repay his loans and focus his mind on other activities other than chasing for rent,” said Munyiri.

For the tenant to use this facility, one doesn’t have to be an account holder at Family Bank. All you need is to ensure that you are MPESA registered and your landlord has an account with Family bank and is registered for MKODI .The transaction information is available at all our branches and this will be supported by a media campaign which will run on mass media.

Munyiri also applauded the estate developers, and offered l continued support to them. “You have done well in opening this sector up. We encourage you to continue with that spirit, build more homes and commercial properties, as we still have a deficit of homes in urban areas especially Nairobi. You can trust us with your business, as Family Bank prides itself with over1million customers, 60 branches countrywide and a balance sheet that is robust enough to lend up to a Ksh. 1 billion.We will work with you to ensure your projects are funded adequately,” Said Munyiri.

He asked the tenants to ensure that they complement these efforts by being good tenants, who pay their rents on time and promised to partner with them to transform their lives through innovative products such as M-KODI and many more to come .