At a recent 3 day Commonwealth Virtual Currencies Working Group conference in London, Kenya was represented by Bitpesa, a digital currency financial service firm based in Nairobi. In the same week, Barclays UK announced it will accept bitcoin -a virtual currency – for charity donations. Late this week, US regulator CFTC officially recognized bitcoin as
KCB in conjunction with GoSwiff – a global mobile commerce and marketing solutions provider- have unveiled a strategic deal to offer a new mobile payment facility targeting Kenyan merchants. The Bank aims to upsurge its financial inclusion and cashlite agenda footprint via the use of GoSwiff’s mobile point of sale (mPOS) facility. Through a mobile
Safaricom has opened up its M-PESA platform to allow local and international developers to come up with next-generation applications that will work with the most preferred mobile money solution. By availing M-PESA’s Application Programming Interface (API), Safaricom is fulfilling a promise made during the commissioning of the new M-PESA technological platform in April this year.
SimbaPay a leading digital money transfer provider announced the expansion of its free instant deposit service to Choice Microfinance Bank in Kenya. SimbaPay has partnered with Choice Microfinance Bank a microfinance institution founded by Kenyans abroad. Money transfers made to Choice Microfinance Bank by Kenyans living abroad using SimbaPay will be free of transfer fees.
Airbnb, the world’s leading community-driven hospitality company, announced that its CEO, Brian Chesky will attend GES 2015 to meet with entrepreneurs from around the world and explore the sharing economy’s impact and expansion, particularly on the African continent – which represents a huge opportunity for the company. In the last twelve months alone, Airbnb has more
Equity Bank Group launched Equitel, a new mobile payment and banking platform for its customers –that officially brings to the fore the convergence between mobile and banking services in Kenya. The Bank has hailed its newest innovation as the answer to promoting greater access to banking services which currently stands at 53 percent of the
IDT Corporation announced that its flagship Boss Revolution international money transfer service has launched a direct-to-mobile-wallet service to Kenya and Niger. Customers can now send money directly from any Boss Revolution money transfer retailer in the U.S. to any Airtel Money account in either country. Recipients will receive funds in their Airtel Money account within
The first SWIFT Business Forum East Africa took place in Nairobi and brought together close to 300 prominent members of the financial community and policy makers to discuss the many opportunities and challenges the region faces. “The theme for this year’s Business Forum is ‘Unleashing growth through regional collaboration’; by opening an office in one
Leading tea management agency, Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA), has partnered with Safaricom to roll out a cashless payment solution at all its 66 factories across the country, in a move that will boost efficiency in factory operations. The factories, which transact approximately Kshs. 1 billion annually through the Factory Door Sales (FDS), will now
SimbaPay a leading digital money transfer provider – announced the launch of the first product in the world that allows Kenyans living abroad to make M-Pesa PayBill payments. This is a new addition to the existing SimbaPay platform. M-Pesa PayBill is an M-Pesa service that has previously only been available to Safaricom M-Pesa subscribers in
