Safaricom hires former Equity Bank Group director of payments

Safaricom has hired former Equity Bank Group director of payments Ronald Webb to head its M-Pesa unit, stepping up the mobile money rivalry between the two companies. Mr Webb has been instrumental in driving the growth of Equity Bank’s mobile money payments platform, Equitel, which he has headed for the past one year.

Mr. Webb has taken over from Betty Mwangi, who left the company in March. Prior to joining Equity bank Mr Webb was co-founder and chief architect of the Paynet and PesaPoint payment platforms in Zimbabwe and Kenya and has more than 30 years of experience in payments technology in Africa.

Credited with innovating new payment solutions, he will now be expected to come up with strategies that could put M-Pesa ahead of its former employer’s product. The competition for a share of the mobile money transfer business intensified in July last year with the entry of Equitel, which now has two million active subscribers.

The competition between Equitel and M-Pesa is expected to intensify with the scramble for customers outside Kenyan borders under way. Last year Safaricom focused on taking M-Pesa to neighbouring countries, signing deals with Tanzania’s Vodacom, MTN Rwanda and MTN Uganda to facilitate cross-border mobile money transfers.

Locally, Safaricom’s M-Pesa is still the leading mobile money provider but the situation could change even as Equity works on partnering with telecoms in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to launch Equitel in these markets.

SOURCE:THEEXCHANGE