Regulator defends Equity’s licence

The Communications Authority (CA) has defended its decision to award Equity Bank a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) licence with which the lender is seeking to penetrate mobile banking industry.

In response to a suit filed by the Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek) seeking to revoke the award to Equity’s subsidiary, Finserve Africa, CA argues that the lobby group has failed to demonstrate the provisions of the Constitution breached in the award.

“The petitioner has not particularised the breaches of Article 156 and has not demonstrated in what manner CA and the Attorney General have infringed on the said provisions in relation to Cofek,” said CA in its response.

The Authority further argued that Cofek has not demonstrated that it exhausted the complaints mechanisms before suing the regulator.

Equity has said it applied for and was awarded an application service provider and a content service provider licence in a transparent manner.

CA further backed the bank’s claim that MVNOs do not own infrastructure, but ride on unused network spectrums from mobile network operators, hence it is not a limited resource as alleged by Cofek.