Safaricom is considered more and more dominant by senators. In order to restrict its hold, they are considering separating its telecoms and mobile payment activities. They also want to know from the telecoms regulator the measures taken to guarantee healthy competition. The Kenyan Senate Committee on Information and Communication Technologies is again threatening to separate the telecoms...
Kenyan operator Safaricom expects a reduced bid price for the Ethiopian market licence after news that only locally owned non-financial institutions will be allowed to offer mobile money services, Business Daily reported. The operator has disclosed that its interest in the market of 108 million people and about 50 million phone subscribers would have been...
Africa focused smart technology solutions provider Cassava Smartech suffered ZWL$2- billion in foreign exchange losses during its full year of operation after the unstable Zimbabwe dollar failed to hold on against major currencies, most notably the US dollar. Cassava was only four months old in February 2019 when authorities initiated radical currency reforms that led...
After transaction costs for mobile money P2P payments of Kshs 1000 or less were scrapped, Safaricom has witnessed a 14.5% year-on-year decline in M-Pesa revenue for the half-year 2020/21 period. Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said the cost incurred by the company amounts to Kshs 9 billion from when it halted fees in March to end...
The Bank of Central African States (BEAC), the sole central bank within the membership-based Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC), has called on MNOs in the sub-region to stop deducting airtime for payments. In a correspondence dated 29 October 2020 sent to the President of Cameroon Association of Telephone Mobile Operators (CATMO), BEAC Governor Abbas...
Digital solutions provider Cassava Smartech’s mobile financial service, EcoCash has begun liquidating bulk funds held by mobile finance agents in compliance with the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank’s directive. In October 2019 the Central Bank ordered mobile payment systems and merchants to discontinue cash-in and cash-out services. In June 2020 the government directed that individual mobile money...
Announced in 2019, mobile payment should soon be available in Angola. Cellular operator Unitel is expected to be the first to provide the service in the country. He obtained his license from the National Bank of Angola which aims for a financial inclusion of 50% of adults by the end of 2022. The mobile telephone operator Unitel...
The Vodacom Group is partnering with global financial inclusion policy and regulation organisation AFI under the global network’s public-private dialogue (PPD) platform to advance financial inclusion in Africa through systematic knowledge sharing with financial policymakers and regulators. According to a statement released to the media, the initial partnership with Vodacom, which runs until October 2021,...
Vodacom Tanzania Plc’s revenue increased by a slight 0.8 percent during the year which ended on March 31, 2020, fuelled primarily by strong growths of M-Pesa and mobile data streams. The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange-registered telecommunication firm recorded a total of Sh1.03 trillion in revenues during the year to March 31, 2020, up from...
A study by the Economics Association of Malawi (ECAMA) has found that the lack of incentives and information is hampering the penetration and usage of mobile money services in the country’s rural areas. The study titled Promoting Mobile Money use through Training and Text Messages in Malawi found that due to lack of information on digital payments, people...
