Airtel Kenya has entered into a deal with Co-operative Bank that will see mobile money subscribers deposit and withdraw money directly from their Bank accounts, using their Airtel lines.
“We are pleased to partner with Airtel to give our customers yet another way to access their money. Mobile Banking registered customers with Airtel lines can access their money from anywhere in the country at their convenience.” Co-op Bank Director for Corporate and Institutional Banking, Tom Kariuki said while speaking at the launch of the service.
He added that the bank will continue rolling out more services in partnership with the mobile operators as it is focused on providing its customers with a flexible, convenient and easy access to their money.
The new service will enable the customers with Airtel lines to pay their utility bills such as electricity and water, receive bank transaction alerts and also checking of the account balance, and will be available to all registered Co-op Bank mobile money subscribers.
Present also at the function is Airtel Kenya Managing Director Mr Shivan Bhargava, who said that the company wants to make life easier for its subscribers by providing convenient and easy to use communication and mobile commerce products and services.
However, the main challenge that both the Bank and Airtel will face is customer education on the benefits of using Mobile Money commerce solutions.
“We will continue to offer locally relevant and simplified solutions that our consumers can readily relate to in their daily lives in our true Kenyan spirit,” Mr. Bhargava added.
A recent study by global payments company, MasterCard showed that Kenyans are among the global mobile payments leaders but says full utilization of such platforms is yet to be reached.
The study showed that Kenya has the world’s highest rate of Person to person payments familiarity at 89 per cent and a reported usage level of 70 per cent.
These are some of the indicators that banks used to partner with Mobile operators in offering mobile banking services, with Airtel-Co-op Bank being the newest partnership in the Kenyan market.
