Safaricom has turned a new page on its Mpesa services in a partnership with the Dot Corporation releasing a product that would aid the visually impaired in reading transaction notifications.
On Friday, Safaricom announced that people living with visual impairment and blindness can now access M-PESA messages independently in braille format.
Customers who’ve lost their sight and those born with such a disability can now conduct financial transactions with confidentiality and independently unlike in the past.
This has been made possible through the partnership between Safaricom and the DOT Incorporation. The partnership bred the introduction of the Dot Braille Watch, an innovation that is an equivalent of a smart gear that displays SMS notifications in braille.
By using the Dot Braille watch, the visually impaired persons can read all their Mpesa notifications.
Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, the Chief Officer, Financial Services at Safaricom signed the MOU with DOT Incorporation on Friday, November 23, 2018.
The move has been welcomed, with Kenyans appealing to other financial institutions to simulate the feature by introducing braille features on ATMs.
Once one has the Dot watch, every text message sent to their smartphone is instantly translated to Braille and forwarded to its display.
Users can then read the message and comfortably with the intuitive touch controls on the watch face. The device has customizable Auto-Scroll features for the visually impaired.
The users can also directly save their Mpesa or any other important messages to check again later.
This specs also apply for calls received on a user’s smartphone, as such, the visually impaired person can know the identity of their callers without touching their phone.
It also enables one to enjoy the use of social networking apps, like reading tweets from their wrist.
