Kenya: Big Banks, Telcos Slow to Heed Order on Fees Disclosures

By Muthoki Mumo

Big commercial banks and telecommunications firms are lagging behind in implementing a directive to disclose all fees incurred in mobile money transactions.

The Competition Authority of Kenya (CAK) says that eight companies are thus far making these disclosures to customers.

Airtel is the only mobile network operator that has complied with the order while Safaricom, Orange and Equitel remain missing from the list. Among Kenya's seven tier one banks, all of which provide mobile banking services, only Co-operative Bank is complying with the order.

The other mobile money service providers that are making the required disclosures include Faulu Kenya, Bank of Africa, Family Bank, NIC Bank, Prime Bank and Mobikash.The CAK attributes the delays in implementing the changes to technical hold-ups. The authority says that it is now engaging the firms individually with a plan to have the whole sector make the disclosures by June 2017.

Initially, the CAK had given the end of 2016 as the deadline for these companies to make the changes.

"We took into account the complexities of some of the systems and are approaching this issue on a case to case basis," said CAK head of consumer protection, Mr Boniface Kamiti.

SOURCE:DAILYNATION