NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

The battle for mobile phone money transactions business is changing in a manner that may cause various players to stop and take notice.

The Equitel mobile banking platform, for example, has eclipsed three older rivals to register 14.4 per cent of the total value of transactions offering real competition for the dominant M-Pesa.

Data from the Communications Authority (CA) for the three months to June shows that a total of Sh138.5 billion was transacted through Equitel against a total of Sh957 billion that passed through all the six mobile money transfer service providers.

Equitel, which was launched in July 19 last year, has raced far ahead of Airtel Money (Sh10 billion), Orange Money (Sh191 million) and Mobikash (Sh373 million).