ICT MINISTRY SEEKS CBK AID IN GROWING CROSS – NETWORK MONEY TRANFERS

The ICT Ministry has proposed that the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) sets regulations on fees for cross-platform money transfers.

The Ministry is subsequently backing the banking sector regulator to enhance mobile-money interoperability and raise the levels of financial inclusivity in the country.

“Operators should apply the same fees structure and level on transfers to registered and unregistered users. The fee for cross-platform transfers should cover cash-withdrawals of money agents,” noted ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru.

“This is likely to benefit smaller mobile-money providers as it would reduce the club effect of Safaricom as the largest mobile-money platform.”

The CS also wants the regulation to allow mobile-money agents to support multiple platforms with a single float.

Kenya open its doors to mobile-money interoperability on mobile phone financial services in April 2018 allowing customers to move funds between differentiated mobile wallets.

Nevertheless, the window has not been fully optimized based on cost differences which have seen the transfers remain relatively costly to on-network money deals.

The CBK had desired the price for transferring money out of the network to be no higher than that of transferring money within the network.

According to the latest data from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA), the number of active mobile money subscriptions stood at 34.7 million as of the end of June with 98.8 per cent of the accounts held by Safaricom’s M-Pesa.

Meanwhile, the number of mobile money agents in the same period stood at 312,402 of which 283,357 were Safaricom agents.

The value of person to person (P2P) transfers and the total value of mobile-money deposits stood at a par Ksh.1 trillion each