Kenyan bank unveils mobile banking

Faulu Kenya has introduced mobile banking where customers can open and operate their bank accounts, reports Daily Nation

Customers can transfer money within accounts and across mobile networks and do automatic and instant loan applications among others.

Chief executive John Mwara says: “We intend to bring onboard several agents once Central Bank releases the prudential guidelines on agency banking for microfinance institutions”. The Central Bank of Kenya has issued guidelines on how commercial banks can appoint agents to provide banking services on behalf of institutions.

Customers will now be able to transfer money from their accounts to any other account in the country using their cellphones, through the National Payment Corporation of India's Inter-bank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS), reveals The Hindu.

The facility allows transactions without the need for a computer or an Internet-enabled phone. Experts say the service introduces a new form of customer-friendliness that a developing ICT nation like India requires.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India records more than 670 million registered mobile subscribers; with the penetration of Internet technologies through mobile phones being higher than the spread of the Internet through broadband connections, the service, they reckon, is expected to boost banking transactions better than Internet banking.

To benefit from the about 70% (about 54 million) unbanked Nigerian adults, the United Bank for Africa (UBA) has gotten approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to deploy mobile banking on its platform, says allAfrica.

The group managing director UBA Mr. Philips Oduoza disclosed this in Lagos at the weekend during the formal release of Western Union money transfer services in the UBA.

"The CBN has approved the license for UBA to deploy mobile banking. We will roll it out very soon. It will basically be to promote retail banking," he says.