Kenya's Equity Bank, Safaricom Team up to Expand Digital Banking

Equity Group, Kenya’s second biggest bank by assets, on Monday signed a partnership agreement with telecoms operator Safaricom to expand their digital financial businesses. The two companies had already teamed up nine years ago to launch the world’s first mobile banking application, M-Kesho. But this failed when the two groups fought over commission-sharing and other issues. Both companies had learnt valuable lessons from that experience, their CEOs said.

Apart from revamping M-Kesho, the companies will explore other areas of partnership to enhance credit access for young people and rural communities, they said, adding the scope of the partnerships would be driven by customer demand.