March 29, 2017 – At the Radisson Blu, Nairobi Upper Hill, a whole day event FT Africa Payments Innovation Summit with the tagline, ‘Enhancing interoperability, security, and marketing take-up’ took place.
Some of the notable speakers include Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore who used the platform to announce the planned slush of Lipa Na M-Pesa tariffs for merchants receiving payments. Collymore more also publicized the MySafaricom app, which now included M-Pesa functionalities. He also talked on the Kadogo tariff, which being expanded to include Buy Goods services under the Lipa Na M-Pesa.
Video of Collymore ahead of the FT Africa Payments Summit
At the summit, which brought together key players in the telecommunication, banking, and government regulators, key collaboration options between the telecoms and banking service we discussed.
Admittedly, when M-Pesa began some 10-years ago, there was little to no regulations put in place, but as the service morphed into a bank-like service. It made a lot of players in the traditional banking industry uneasy, with some accusing it of operating like a bank without all the regulations banks have to operate under.
The Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) admitted though initially there were little regulations on mobile money operations in the country. The regulator has come of age and has put in place key regulations to check and regulate operations of mobile money service.
The CA also delved into the recent reports of separating M-Pesa from Safaricom following by stakeholders that the telecom has grown into a dominant player. Thus Safaricom being able to influence the playing field to its advantage while making the business environment unfriendly for the competition. The CA reiterated on the need to encourage innovation in the market and not punishing it, citing M-Pesa was a homegrown solution to the inability of conventional banking services to reach the masses. If the CA were to advocate for the splitting of Safaricom and M-Pesa will be tantamount to punishing the telecom for its innovativeness.
The KCB Bank Group CEO Joshua Oigara reiterated on the advantages of banks and telecoms complementing each other. As opposed banks trying to get regulators to ban financial inclusion services provided by telecoms. Oigara cited the KCB – Safaricom services, where the bank ported its services into the telecom’s M-Pesa service as KCB M-Pesa.
The KCB M-Pesa enables users to deposit funds into mobile wallet savings accounts, wirelessly transfer funds, and get loans right from their phone. Services the KCB Bank is now able to provide to customers, without the customers ever stepping inside the Bank’s halls.
The following is a summary of what was said and what happened at the FT Africa Payments Summit in tweets:
Habil: Kenya is in the process of establishing a payment service provider management body to regulate the players. #FTAfricaPayments
— KenyaBankers (@KenyaBankers) March 29, 2017
Dr. Njoroge: In order to harness financial inclusion further we should lower the costs of handsets. #FTAfricaPayments
— KenyaBankers (@KenyaBankers) March 29, 2017
Kenya is an example to the world that digital financial inclusion is possible. #FTAfricaPayments @ftlive
— Rose Muturi (@ShikoKinuthia) March 29, 2017
Bank of Mauritius is exploring how to leverage #Blockchain technology for cross-border settlement. @BitPesa at #FTAfricaPayments pic.twitter.com/m2JWAdSFQd
— Charlene Chen (@chartouche) March 29, 2017
“Banks have been fairly inept about how they use the data they have to their competitive advantage” @JeremyAwori #FTAfricaPayments
— John Aglionby (@johnaglionby) March 29, 2017
Kenya insurance penetration at 3% – 3.5% which could be improved thro’ financial firms/telco partnerships – @JeremyAwori #FTAfricaPayments
— Dennis Kioko (@denniskioko) March 29, 2017
“Consumers now have more faith in telcos than some of the banks.” @JeremyAwori #FTAfricaPayments @ftlive
— John Aglionby (@johnaglionby) March 29, 2017
The rapid growth of mobile money has pushed banks to try something new ~Jeremy Awori #FTAfricaPayments
— Mutave Mutemi (@ms_tave) March 29, 2017
Dare Okoudjou of @MFS_Africa told #FTAfricaPayments: Interoperability matters when we’re dealing with 54 countries and 54 governors.
— FT Live Digital (@FTLiveDigital) March 29, 2017
Benin are creating an ID database and the ID numbers will be used for various purposes. They can then use biometrics. #FTAfricaPayments
— Rose Muturi (@ShikoKinuthia) March 29, 2017
Nigeria also doing same as Benin, creation of Biometric unique IDs but this is Private Sector driven. #FTAfricaPayments
— Rose Muturi (@ShikoKinuthia) March 29, 2017
The conversations still continues on social media under the hashtag #FTAfricaPayments. You can join in or read through for more informations.
