Airtel Equity sign deal

 

An Airtel shop. The deal between the two companies allows their customers to carry out money transactions on each other’s platforms locally and in the continent.  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By JOSHUA MASINDE

In Summary

• Equity has already integrated its money transfer and transaction platform with the payment platforms of other mobile phone operators including Safaricom, yuCash and Orange

A new partnership between mobile phone firm Airtel and Equity Bank is expected to intensify competition in mobile money services.

The deal between the two companies allows their customers to carry out money transactions on each other’s platforms locally and in the continent.

“We have taken a continental approach in this arrangement so we will move from one country to another where we both have a presence to facilitate regional money transfer from in-country transfers on each other’s platforms,” said Equity Bank chief executive officer James Mwangi during the signing of the agreement Tuesday.

Airtel will be seeking to tap into Equity’s wide network in the financial sector to grow its mobile money service while the bank will use Airtel’s technology to drive its mobile banking services.

Currently, the bank has 7,632 agents who will work together with those of Airtel Money who are 10,000 countrywide.

Negotiations on the deal started several years ago. The partnership also allows mobile phone provider, which operates in 17 countries, to take advantage of Equity Bank’s more than 8 million customers to grow its operations.

“This partnership marks another milestone in deepening of Airtel Money to our customers throughout Kenya,” said Airtel Africa chief executive officer Mr Jayant Kholsa.

Equity has already integrated its money transfer and transaction platform with the payment platforms of other mobile phone operators including Safaricom, yuCash and Orange.

The bank plans to do the same in the region where it has a presence, a move that is set to speed up the inter-operability of money transactions across the mobile phone operators.

“By putting all these four telecommunication companies to work in Kenya, we are moving slowly away from closed systems and we are hoping eventually there will be a perfect interoperability amongst the telecoms,” Mr Mwangi said.

In 2010, the bank partnered with Safaricom to launch M-Kesho, a service that could allow customers of both firms to make savings, access credit and conduct transactions across each other’s service agents or platforms.

The product, however, seems to have failed to take off and has instead been replaced by M-Shwari, another product of a similar nature offered jointly by Safaricom and Commercial Bank of Africa.