Zain, Western Union tap Diaspora cash

By Macharia Kamau

Western Union has tapped its advantage in handling remittances from Kenyans living abroad, under a new partnership with Zain Kenya. Under the agreement unveiled yesterday, the two firms will allow the Kenyans living in Africa and the Middle East to send money to their kin via their handsets using Zap, the international mobile money transfer and banking service owned by Zain. The move could make up slightly for loss of local market share by Western Union to Safaricom’s M-Pesa service. The Standard reported last week that PostaPay, Western Union and Moneygram had lost a significant chunk of their market share in local money transfers to M-Pesa. The partnership between Zain and Western Union is, however, limited to transfers among the 24 countries in Africa and Middle East, where Zain operates.