Equity set to roll out cross-border mobile money

Equity Group will in November roll out a cross-border e-commerce money transfer and payments platform through its Finserve subsidiary.

Group chief executive James Mwangi said the platform, mKey, will ride on the bank’s regional network in Rwanda, Tanzania, DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan.

“Going mobile will help us offer more products and services, reduce our operational costs as well as woo tech-savvy young populations to use mobile Internet to pay for utilities, transfer cash, buy goods and pay for services as well as borrow loans ranging from Sh300 to Sh1 million. Finserve has employed 18 people that support our 13 million clients,” Mr Mwangi said.

Finserve, a wholly owned mobile virtual network operator, will also be deployed in Nigeria and Ethiopia by end of 2019.

He said during the interview that the platform will be used to push all products to a global audience enhancing the uptake of loans, savings, forex trading, sale and buying of securities.

Finserve managing director Jack Ngare said mKey was a one-stop online platform that solved the multi-channel challenges mobile Internet users have navigating through mobile apps in search of services.

“We have 6,000 mobile apps on our platforms enabling you to conduct end-to-end transactions from one platform, mKey.

“Buy goods, pay for services, utilities, renew subscription, read news among others. You no longer need to download numerous apps that make mobile phones to hang or slow our internet speeds.

“mKey has integrated the apps with their payments’ platform where one loads money from their mobile wallets of participating banks,” he said.

Mr Ngare said diaspora remittances will also be embedded on the mKey portal in November 2018, with users allowed to create and customise their own facial characters.