Diamond Trust Bank Kenya (DTB) and Mastercard are rolling-out the DTB Masterpass QR app in Kenya. This follows merchant service provider, Kopo Kopo, inking a partnership with Mastercard in March 2017, to roll out Masterpass QR across eleven markets in Sub-Saharan Africa, impacting over 250,000 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) over the next five…
Visa introduced mVisa, a new mobile payment service that will accelerate digital commerce in Kenya and across Africa. As part of its initial roll-out, Visa has partnered with Co-Operative Bank, Family Bank, KCB, and NIC Bank to deliver this service to Kenyan consumers and merchants. With mVisa, consumers can directly access all of the funds…
Kenya’s Victoria Commercial Bank is launching a MasterCard World Rewards Credit card. The new card will give cardholders access to the Priceless Cities and Priceless Africa programs.
While payment products are quickly penetrating African consumer markets they are primarily used for income dispensing by not for payments. South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Egypt have advanced in enabling access to and driving usage of different financial products including payments, lending, long-term savings or investments, and insurance.
Following a successful entry into the Nigerian market with contactless mobile payments, Bangalore based iKaaz is now ready to offer its popular NFC and bluetooth powered cloud based payments platform to consumers in Kenya. Announcing a strategic alliance with Family Bank, one of Kenya’s leading banks, iKaaz along with its local partner EDGE financial systems will bring the revolutionary Tap & Pay solution to Family Bank’s customers. Family Bank customers can now expect to move faster through checkout at retail stores as well as be able to use the same payment tags to pay at transportation check points.
Compass Plus has announced that Kenya Commercial Bank, one of the largest banks in the country, has launched its in-house processing centre built on TranzWare products from Compass Plus. Kenya Commercial Bank set out to replace its entire retail banking system, previously built on separate solutions from different providers, to one fully integrated platform that would improve the bank’s efficiency, increase performance, provide flexibility and be fault-tolerant.
ElectraCard Services (ECS) announced that the student prepaid cards program at Chase Bank, Kenya has been launched on the electra platform. ECS is the technology and processing partner for the program and leverages its PA-DSS certified electraPREPAID platform to provide a seamless, safe and secure solution. Chase Bank has partnered with UNISCOO (University Students Community Organization) to offer the MasterCard prepaid card to its members. The UNISCOO card will allow users to top up and shop at any MasterCard enabled physical or online merchant. Topping up the card can be done at any Chase Bank Branch as well as through M-Pesa and Airtel Money at no additional cost. The Card is aimed at giving the user an easy way to manage funds that is both convenient and secure.
Cooperative Bank of Kenya has completed its implementation of Misys BankFusion – a transformation platform to support the bank’s rapid expansion plans. Since implementation, the bank’s profits have increased 31 percent to Kshs 3.23 billion, for the first quarter of 2013. Transaction processing throughput has doubled and end-of-day processing has improved by 40%. The bank has 3.4 million customers and is looking to grow this considerably over the next twelve months through superior customer service and an extended branch network able to serve its customers more effectively. Misys BankFusion provides the innovation platform for Cooperative Bank of Kenya’s ambitious growth plans.
TSYS announced that it supports Paynet, one of Kenya’s leading financial services providers to issuers and acquirers, in its ‘Great Migration to EMV Chip Card’ campaign. Paynet has been a TSYS client since 2004. It licenses PRIME 4, the latest version of the TSYS licensed card and merchant management solution, to manage its Visa card portfolio and provide a full range of outsourced front- and back-office card processing and fraud management services for financial institutions across Kenya and East Africa. Paynet initiated ‘The Great Migration to EMV Chip Card’ campaign to fight card fraud by urging banks and other stakeholders in the region to move toward the higher security EMV Chip debit/credit card standard.
Equity Bank and Airtel Kenya have entered into a partnership that will offer comprehensive mobile commerce solutions to their customers through Airtel Money. The service, available to all Equity Bank customers with Airtel lines, will enable customers from both Airtel and Equity Bank to access Airtel mobile banking platforms, perform agency cash transactions at Equity Bank branches and also enable Airtel services customers to withdraw money at any Equity Bank countrywide. Airtel Money will also enable customers to pay their utility bills, receive bank transaction alerts, check account balance and receive mini statements, among other services. Airtel Money is fast becoming the preferred way of sending and receiving money across the Kenya and the region with customers widely using to pay utility bills such as electricity, water and pay-television subscriptions. The process is fully automated and reflects in real time providing customers with a faster and more secure mode of carrying out their transactions.
MasterCard announced the launch of a brand new training facility in Kenya to empower the financial services ecosystem with knowledge on various aspects of cashless payments in order to boost acceptance readiness in the region. The training centre, located at MasterCard’s East Africa offices in Eldama Park, off Peponi Road, will be used for training purposes for merchants, retailers and other partners. The facility, which can seat up to 40 people at a time, will be used to host project meetings to enhance awareness of global payments industry best practice in issuance of cards, retail payments and technical aspects of cashless transactions. In addition, the training centre will facilitate workshops to address issues that are important to stakeholders in the payments industry including: the latest MasterCard payment technologies, EMV migration, data security standards, customer service trends and retailer best practices.
MasterCard and Equity Bank launched mPOS technology to Kenya, in conjunction with Ezetap. Part of the strategic alliance between Equity Bank and MasterCard to issue 5 million cards, this will give Equity Bank the necessary data to implement a more in-depth countrywide roll-out of the Ezetap MPOS solution. The mPOS consists of a lightweight and robust device that can be plugged into smart phones and tablets and is PCIDSS and PADSS compliant. Merchants with transaction volumes of less than US$100,000 are able to revolutionize their businesses with the adoption of this technology. It includes a mobile phone, the MPOS card reader payment application and the Ezetap MPOS Card Reader that plugs into the mobile handset.
