Equitel credits 16pc growth to merchants

Equitel has linked a 16 percent growth in the number of commercial mobile money transactions up to June to aggressive signing up of retailers and online merchants as well increase in agents.

The Equity Group platform—whose subscription base as at June 2019 was 1.88 million, accounting for 3.6 percent of the market share—saw its mobile money commerce transactions increase to 101 million as at the end of June 2019, up from 87 million in the same period last year, according to the data from the Communications Authority (CA).

The value of mobile commerce transactions increased to Sh378.9 billion, a 15 percent increase from Sh328 billion processed over the same period in 2018.

“Our effort to digitise retail commerce operations through enrolling retail shops to transact through EazzyPay has paid off,” said Equity Group chief executive James Mwangi.

“The number of EazzyPay transactions has grown, suggesting the sizes of transactions are increasing and the country is accepting the risk of digital money.”

Equitel said it processed over 156 million transactions as at the end of June, 2019, valued at Sh469.9 billion, compared to 140 million at the same period last year, valued at Sh413.4 billion. Its person-to-person transfers grew by eight percent to Sh126.5 billion up from Sh117 billion, accounting for 16 percent of the total Sh770.9 billion transferred in June 2019.

Total deposits stood at Sh81 billion in the same period, accounting for 12 percent of the overall Sh669.3 billion deposited across all mobile payment platforms.

“Our customers are digitising their money. “Once the money is deposited on their mobile phones, they are not withdrawing but transacting with it on a digital platform and that to us is the best change we are seeing in the overall markeT,” said Mr Mwangi.