VCL Financial Services (VCLFS), commonly known as M-Pesa, hereby notifies its customers of an interest payment program that will see eligible customers receiving payments from VCL Financial service into their M-Pesa accounts. These payments are their share of interest accumulated over the period January 2022 to December 2022.
Being a mobile money operator and a Financial Services provider, VCL FS is requested by law to keep actual deposits with the Banks in a trust account. The money that is in the trust account needs to be equal to the amount of money in its ecosystem being circulated as e-money (M-Pesa). The money kept in the trust account earns interest over time, and it is with the recommendation of the Central Bank of Lesotho and the Financial legal service’s framework that determines how the said interest is dealt with, either through customer benefiting initiatives or having customers receive it in the accounts in the form of M-Pesa, as our case may be.
Eligible Transactions and Exclusions
Only customers who make the following transactions on M-Pesa are going to be considered:
The aggregate value of these transactions is going to be considered, looking at both Credit and Debit entries over a specific period. The timeframe in view for this batch of payments is from January to December 2022.
Transactions and customer types excluded in the interest calculations or being recipients of the said interests are the following:
Transaction Types
Customer Types
Calculation of interest and Methodology
Each individual customer is going to have their daily transactions calculated and this is going to be called their “Throughput (Contribution/Weight), this throughput is going to be calculated as their total Debit and Credit entries. A customer’s throughput is then calculated as a percentage of the total Trust account throughput, the resulting percentage is then multiplied to the total interest accumulated, which determines the share of a customer on the total interest allocation.
It is important to note that the calculation does not take into consideration the amount of money held as a balance in the customer account. Only the qualifying transaction types made by the customer over the period stated will be considered in the calculation.
For further clarity, please consider the examples below:
Assumptions:
Example 1: Thabo’s interest payment Calculations
Step 1: Calculate weight of Thabo’s throughput (Assumption 3(a)) as a percentage of the Total Trust Account throughput (Assumption 2).
M1,000.00/ M1,000,000.00 = 0.001 (which is 0.1%)
Step 2 : Find out how much of the Total interest accumulated (Assumption 1), is due to Thabo
0.1% * M10,000.00 = M10.00 (Thabo will receive M10.00 on the 20th Feb 2023)
Example 2: Bohlokoa’s interest payment Calculations
Step 1: Calculate weight of Bohlokoa’s throughput (Assumption 3(b)) as a percentage of the Total Trust Account throughput (Assumption 2).
M500.00/ M1,000,000.00 = 0.0005 (which is 0.05%)
Step 2: Find out how much of the Total interest accumulated (Assumption 1), is due to Bohlokoa
0.05% * M10,000.00 = M5.00 ( Bohlokoa will receive M5.00 on the 20th Feb 2023)
Example 3: Teboho’s interest payment Calculations
Step 1: Calculate weight of Tebohos’s throughput (Assumption 3(c)) as a percentage of the Total Trust Account throughput (Assumption 2).
M150.00/ M1,000,000.00 = 0.00015 (0.015%)
Step 2: Find out how much of the Total interest accumulated (Assumption 1), is due to Teboho
0.015% * M10,000.00 = M1.50 (Teboho will receive M1.50 on the 20th Feb 2023)
From the examples above, we realize that Thabo, Bohlokoa and Teboho would all be receiving different interest payment amounts based on their spend in the stipulated period. We also realise that their account balances were never included in the calculation.