By OKUTTAH MARK
In Summary
- Mr Waweru, who holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from University of Nairobi, will head the Finserve board.
- He will work with the bank’s team that put the Mobile Virtual Network Operations infrastructure in place.
John Waweru, the former Communications Commission of Kenya boss has been appointed by Equity Bank to chair Finserve, its subsidiary for mobile phone-based banking and voice services in July.
Mr Waweru, who holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from University of Nairobi, will head the Finserve board.
James Mwangi, the Equity Bank CEO, said Mr Waweru
will work with the bank’s team that put the Mobile Virtual Network
Operations infrastructure in place.
It was during his tenure at CCK that the unified
licensing regime that gave birth to Applications Service Provider ASP
under which Equity was licensed as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator
(MVNO) was created.
MVNO comes with a license fee requirement of
Sh100,000 and enables an entity to offer services such as customer
registration, SIM card issuance, billing and customer care to end users
without holding a spectrum licence.
Other than Finserve, which the telecoms regulator licensed as an MVNO in April, other providers includes Mobile Pay Limited, owned by Tangaza money and ZionCell.
This means that the three firms will ride on the
existing infrastructure of the mobile operators at a fee to offer their
services.
“John Waweru the former CCK director general is
joining Finserve as an executive chair and will work with a management
team that has helped put the infrastructure in place,” said Mr Mwangi.
This team has, among others, John Staley, the
bank’s chief officer (finance and technology), Julius Kipng’etich, the
chief operating officer, Raphael Hukai, chief information officer ,
Allan Waititu, director special projects, and Enrico Nora, executive
director for mobile innovations.
“We want to roll out the MVNO with a military
precision and discipline. This will be made possible by the people we
have in the team” added Mr Mwangi.
The new licences are expected to promote competition in the telecommunications sector.
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