Kenya’s second largest mobile service operator Artel Kenya plans to introduce its overdraft mobile money service before the end of this year.
This will be the first mobile based overdraft solution to rival Safaricom’s lucrative Fuliza service which commands huge subscription thanks to the telco’s large M-pesa user base.
“More exciting products are coming. We had promised an overdraft solution and this will be coming towards the end of this quarter and more and more products are actually coming,” said Michael Bonke, Airtel Money Kenya Acting Managing Director.
The firm says this is part of its growing investment to grow Airtel Money which has registered increased subscription to over 6 million customers.
According to Bonke, Airel has also managed to grow its market share in recent years from 2pc to the current 11pc.
“We keep investing into our business, growing our distribution. We are currently at 270,000 active agents and we keep doing partnerships with various banks and retail store,” added Bonke.
Latest data by Communications Authority indicate that the country currently has 602,470 mobile money agents spread across the country serving 53.4 million subscribers.
“We have been growing consistently and steadily our market share over the few past years. This is as a result of enhanced investment in our network and the focus priority we have into meeting our customers satisfaction,” said Djibril Tobe, Airtel Kenya Managing Director.
In a bid to improve its quality of service especially in remote regions and areas near borders, Airtel Kenya says it is also ready to rollout Direct-to-Cell (DTC) service which is a partnership with SpaceX.
This will allow Airtel 4G and 5G subscribers to receive SpaceX network seamlessly where Airtel network is unreachable at current rates.
“We have already carried out a very successful pilot which proved that it is working and as soon as we get the approval from the regulator we will be able to offer this product to Kenyans who will now be reachable everywhere in the country,” said Tobe.
The telco is also targeting to set up a hyperscale data centre which will be the largest in the region to support enterprises amid growing demand for hosting capacity. The data centre which will be located in Tatu City is expected to be operational by July next year.
They were speaking during the launch of Bizna Wallet, a dedicated business wallet designed to help Kenya’s small businesses better manage their finances efficiently.
