Equity announces MVNO roll out plans, bank to issue 8.7 million free SIM cards
Local daily ,The Nation reports on it’s news website today that Equity Bank will be launching it’s MVNO network in July of this year. The bank will also be giving out 8.7 million free SIM cards. The report on the website also quotes the bank’s C.E.O Dr. James Mwangi setting pricing for Equity’s mobile money transfer service starting at 1% of the transation fee subject to a maximum cap of KES 25. “If you send Sh100 , you will pay Sh1. If you send Sh1,000, you will pay a maximum of Sh25,” Dr. Mwangi is quoted as saying at an event to announce the bank’s MVNO strategy held Monday. These prices obviously compare favorably with Safaricom’s popular Mpesa service. It will be interesting to see pricing wars in the mobile money market, as well as, with new competition, improved service. Equity is set to launch it’s telecommunications services through it’s subsidiary FinServe Africa in the second half of the year. The bank will not be rolling out it’s own infrastructure, and plans to ride on Airtel Kenya’s existing infrastructure for it’s MVNO. An agreement is reportedly already in place allowing Equity to use 60% of Airtel Kenya’s existing excess capacity.
As at the time of writing this post, #EquityMVNO was interestingly trending on Kenyan Twitter
