2013/7/10 Anthony Tai <jicholatai@gmail.com>

The I&M and KCB cards, one has to wait for 1 week to get it, then they have all these fees you have to work with. For a start up where all funds are important, Nationhela overtakes them.

The only drawback has been when they go down. No warning, nothing. Then the clueless customer service doesn't help.

Are you talking from experience Anthony? I think with proper choice, you can work out something with I&M to keep charges on the bare minimum.

Acquisition

I got my I&M card printed & activated on the same day from their HQ branch on Kenyatta Avenue. The KCB card took a week.

If I recall well, I paid 1000/= for the KCB card and 2000/= for the I&M card.

Charges

KCB charges 20/= for each cash withdrawal on ANY VISA branded atm in the milky way. There's a monthly charge of 100/= and an annual fee of 500/=. Online payments are free. The transaction currency is KES, so they make their kill on the currency exchange rate

My I&M card is USD denominated (there's a newer & better one that's multi-currency denominated). The charge is KES 200/= every time you top up funds into the card. There are no annual charges and online payments are free (though the brochure I initially got at the time wasn't clear on this). There are forex conversion losses if the payments are in USD. The ATM withdrawals are charged $1 locally and $4 internationally.

In terms of tracking the cards, the I&M portal allows me to view transactions & block/unblock the card at will. The unsightly KCB portal just allows me to view the card transactions.

Tony.