“Equitel is a Mobile Banking Service Not a Mobile Money Service Provider ,” Says CAK

The Communication Authority has removed Equitel from the mobile money category arguing that it is more of a banking product.

The authority says this was necessitated by the fact that there was a decrease in the value of transactions as well as indicators on mobile transactions.

Communication Authority report states that, “The Authority in the July-September 2019 statistics has revised its data on mobile money services with the exclusion of data in Equitel money,which is a mobile banking service as opposed to a mobile wallet service by telecommunication service. With this unfolding, therefore, Communication Authority will no longer regulate the mobile virtual network leaving the task almost exclusively to the Central Bank Of Kenya (CBK).”

According to news reports, as at June 2019, Equitel had 1.88 million subscribers while its mobile money commerce transactions hit 101 million.

Equitel was launched in 2015 by Equity Bank which had acquired a mobile virtual network operator licence combining banking and telecommunications services including voice and data on a single simcard.

Equitel has however evolved and is now accessible online through an app in what mirrors similar services from other banks.

Before it was dropped from Communication Authority preview Equitel subscriber base as at June 2019 was 1.88 million representing a 3.6 % of the market share.