Financial sector gets edgy as telcos plan how to convert phones into savings accounts

Users can also send funds directly to their bank accounts.

“We deliberately developed this product with the financial sector in order to incorporate best practices,” said George Held, Products and Innovation Director at Zain Group.

Priority product

For Telkom Kenya, expected to launch Orange Money in November last year, the delayed onset of services has been attributed to fine tuning efforts aimed at streamlining its Orange Money product to suit the needs of the local market.

“We will be launching the service this year, I can not commit to when. All I can say is that this is a priority product for the group,” said Mickael Ghossein, Telkom Kenya CEO, in a past interview.

In December last year, Essar announced that it had inked a deal with international payment solution provider Obopay, and planned to launch joint operations with Equity Bank.

Three months down the line, there are no physical signs that the service is operational and active.

Data obtained from the firm indicates that it will be pursuing a similar tariff structure to that on M-pesa, with charges falling within the range of Sh0–350 for transactions, compared to Sh0-400 on M-pesa.

It costs Sh25 to send money to registered YuCash subscriber, compared to Sh30 on M-pesa.