Venturing into the money markets

The Government has just announced the world’s first Treasury Bond to be offered exclusively via mobile phone. Dubbed M-Akiba, the bond offer opens on October 16.

This five-year, M-Akiba infrastructure bond, will be offered to the public via Safaricom’s M-Pesa mobile money service and is expected to raise Sh5 billion. Further, in a move designed to boost take-up of the bond, the Government reduced the size of bond increments that can be purchased from Sh50,000 to Sh3,000.