Plan to boost mobile cash transfer underway
PHOTO | DIANA NGILA Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore (right) and the company's chairman Nicholas Ng’ang’a (left) with board members Nancy Macharia (2nd left) and Susan Mudhune during the launch of Safaricom second sustainability report at the Michael Joseph Centre in Nairobi on Wednesday 16 October.
What you need to know:
- The government is in the process of setting up the Payment Service Provider Management Body to enable Kenyans transfer cash across all networks.
- The forum is expected to bring together Central Bank of Kenya and representatives from Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, Orange, yuMobile and the Postal Corporation of Kenya, all who run e-money services.
- Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore said the firm supports the sharing of mobile money platforms especially with international firms.
Safaricom may soon be required to open up M-Pesa money transfer platform to other mobile firms.
The government is in the process of setting up the Payment Service Provider Management Body to enable Kenyans transfer cash across all networks.
The proposed body would allow mobile firms to agree on key issues such as interconnection charges and sharing liability of the transactions, said the Central Bank of Kenya head of national payments system, Mr Stephen Mwaura on Wednesday.
The proposed national payment system will seek to create the forum for the sharing.
The regulations to guide the set up of the system were made public last week by the Treasury for comments. It said the electronic retail payment service providers would open systems which can be used by other payment systems, the regulations said.
E-MONEY SERVICES
The forum is expected to bring together Central Bank of Kenya and representatives from Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, Orange, yuMobile and the Postal Corporation of Kenya, all who run e-money services.
Speaking during the launch of the Safaricom sustainability report, Mr Mwaura said the regulations are guided by the increase of mobile money services which have become integral part of Kenyans way of life.
Some critics have said Safaricom has monopolised the market with dominant M-Pesa. yuMobile last year said it was willing to pay royalty fees to Safaricom to be allowed to offer M-Pesa services to its customers.
Safaricom chief executive Bob Collymore said the firm supports the sharing of mobile money platforms especially with international firms.
He said there was a greater need for these systems at the international level than locally because people want to be able to easily send money home. “Achieving this would be a major boost for us,” Mr Collymore said.
The proposed regulations also demand the telecommunications firms create independent business units for e-money services separate from their core business.
