Politicians must not be allowed to stifle innovation

Equity Bank’s planned entry into the cash-rich telecoms sector has been long in the works and a move Kenyans should toast to.

The biggest bank by customer numbers has had on its payroll a team of experts for close to 10 years looking into how best to enter a market that has seen so many firms give up their fight against the region’s most successful company – Safaricom.

And so when early in the year, Equity Bank executives announced adoption of a technology that does not necessarily require change of SIM cards, it was a first of sorts and exactly the kind of approach that was going to shake the market.

From a distance, it would appear that Equity Bank might just offer a more respectable challenge to Safaricom – thereby helping improve quality of service, lowering transaction charges as well as helping drive innovation in a sector that has come to be a money-spinner quite literally.

From the outset, the adoption of the Thin SIM technology seemed to take into account critical factors that had in the past put paid to efforts by other telecom firms to nibble away part of what constituted Safaricom’s market share – a signal that they had done their homework.

For starters, the Thin-SIM would conveniently allow subscribers to stick with their service providers while at the same time allowing them an opportunity to sample new product offerings.

It was always going to take extra genius for any new entrant to take on a product that is as central to our daily lives as MPesa and clearly, with the Thin SIM technology, Equity Bank almost hit the bull’s eye.

Of course there have been concerns about the security of the platform and how invasive the technology could be to other service providers in the face of growing online crime.

That, however, is a subject best dealt with by relevant agencies including the Central Bank and the Communications Authority of Kenya.

This fact is what doesn’t seem to register with our know-it-all politicians. In a report adopted by a committee of the National Assembly, the Parliamentary Committee on Information and Technology wants the deployment of the Thin SIM suspended.

In the report, the committee accused CBK and CAK on the manner in which Equity bank was licensed to operate the technology in the country, describing the process as “indecent haste”.

The report also says due process was not followed in licensing Equity Bank to operate the technology, thereby exposing Kenyans to great risk.

While the report purports to speak for the ‘invisible’ public, it is short on specifics, short on scientific data and its substance is no more than rantings and blame games.

It is also silent on the fact that it is the same public that has been asking for alternative service providers just so that people can make a choice.

Without seeming to side with Equity Bank and to make light of concerns of online security, we reiterate that it is not in the province of MPs to stop any innovation, let alone the implementation of the Thin SIM technology.

Rather, they should raise any issues – backed by scientific evidence – with the concerned regulatory authorities.

Equity Bank, like any other investor, deserves a fair hearing. It hurts the economy that an investment that would have created hundreds of jobs should be suspended in perpetuity. Politicians must not be allowed to stifle innovation.