Equity doubles its value of mobile money business

Equity Bank’s Equitel money has doubled its value of transactions in the mobile money business in three months eating into the market share of its competitors PHOTO: COURTESY

Equity Bank’s Equitel money has doubled its value of transactions in the mobile money business in three months eating into the market share of its competitors.

 Equity moved Sh138.5 billion in the fourth quarter ended June 2016, translating into 14.5 per cent of the total value of transactions, latest report from Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) show. When compared to the third quarter when Equitel transacted Sh62.4 billion, its value of transactions has also more than doubled.

The service rides on Airtel’s network, making it to save on costs. Its competitor, M-Pesa, which is the market leader, transacted Sh807.1 billion, being more than five times that of Equitel. This was 5.4 per cent growth when compared to previous quarter. Of the total Sh957 billion transacted, Safaricom’s M-Pesa commanded 84.3 per cent of the transactions.

 This was a drop by 6.7 percentage points from the third quarter when 91 per cent of the value transacted was through M-Pesa. Overall, the value of transactions was up by 14 per cent in a period that saw Airtel money’s value of transactions drop by 11.9 per cent to Sh10.9 billion. During the three months, Mobikash, another player, suffered a 62 per cent drop in the value of transactions from Sh605.7 million to Sh373.5 million.