The Higher Education Loans Board (HELB) on has unveiled a new Mobile application through which university and college students can now use to access their loans via Mpesa.
This is a collaboration between telecommunications giant Safaricom and HELB and was revealed during the 2023 HELB Universities Consultative Forum.
The HELB Mobile Wallet will empower students to receive the upkeep portion of their student loans direct to their M-PESA account. In addition, the two organisations have launched the HELB M-PESA Mini App where all HELB beneficiaries can manage their accounts.
The mobile app allows eligible students to apply for loans, view loan statuses and repay loans, is accessible to through the Safaricom M-Pesa Mini App and HELB USSD code *642#.
“The higher education institutions continuing students can receive notifications and access the utilization statement for financial planning; while the beneficiaries who have graduated can track their payments and generate loan statements,” said the State body in a statement.
At the same time HELB further announced that plans are also underway to incorporate a similar payment solution for Airtel and Telkom networks.
According to HELB CEO Charles Ringera, the new solution has the potential and capacity to serve approximately 420,000 students who apply for the loans annually.
The launch of the mobile wallet payment solution, HELB alms at providing a simple digital customer journey for the management of student loan funds.
Loan beneficiaries will be expected to, in-turn, repay the loan after completion of their studies in order to create a revolving fund for future generations.
All M-PESA customers can access the HELB Mini App under the “Services” section on the M-PESA Super App. Beneficiaries who have already registered their mobile phone numbers with HELB will then key in their phone number upon which they will receive a code to activate the Mini App and set a PIN for subsequent access.
Beneficiaries yet to register their mobile number with HELB will need to key in a phone number registered to the same National ID linked to their HELB account to connect their numbers and activate the Mini App.