Consumers lose out as Safaricom and Equity tariff wars intensify

From left: Airtel Africa CEO Christian De Faria, Equity Group CEO James Mwangi, Chief Officer, Finance, Innovation and Payments John Staley and Finserve Africa Ltd Chairman John Waweru at the launch of Equitel last month.

A fresh storm is brewing between Kenya’s financial services giants, Safaricom and Equity Bank, over the rates being levied to consumers making transactions across the two service providers. The latest wars also puts to question the security of money sent across both platforms, with consumers paying the ultimate price.

The latest round of controversy comes as Equity accuses Safaricom of arbitrarily increasing the mobile money transfer rates charged to Equitel’s consumers transferring money to Safaricom’s M-Pesa service.