KENYA:Equitel payments hit Sh449 billion

BRIAN NGUGI

Equity Bank’s  mobile money platform Equitel recorded a 73 percent growth in the number of mobile money commerce transactions last year.

Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) data shows Equitel processed 106 million mobile payments as at the end of December 2018, up from 65.9 million processed in a similar period in 2017.

The value of these transactions increased to Sh449.2 billion, a 73 percent rise from Sh258.9 billion that was processed over the same period in 2017.

Equity Group Holdings’ fintech arm Finserve attributed Equitel’s interoperability feature that allows payments to be received from all mobile money transfer services for the growth.

“Equitel’s growth in mobile commerce payments has additionally been driven by the aggressive signing up leading retailers and online merchants,” said Finserve managing director Jack Ngare in a statement.

“We are continuously partnering with merchants to ensure that we create a seamless payment process while giving more options to customers.”

The volume of person-to-person transfers on the other hand increased by 21 percent to stand at Sh122.9 billion.

Overall the number of transactions processed stood at 166.4 million up from 110.5 million, translating to a 51 percent increase while the total value of transactions increased by 33 percent to stand at Sh467.2 billion from Sh350.5 billion.

Equitel’s subscription base as at December 2018 was 2.075 million.

Equitel, which was launched in July 2015, accounted for 22 percent or Sh467.2 billion of the Sh2.1 trillion that was transacted in mobile money as at the end of December in a segment dominated by Safaricom’s M-Pesa.

SOURCE:BUSINESSDAILY