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

Monday, April 14, 2014

Kenya’s number of mobile money players could jump from four to seven after the country has officially awarded three mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) licences this week.

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) made a statement on Thursday about the awarding of the licences.

Recipients of the MVNO licences are Finserve Africa Limited, a subsidiary of Equity bank, Tangaza’s Mobile Pay Limited and Zioncell Kenya Limited. MVNOs typically sign lease agreements with the existing operators in order to use their infrastructure in distributing their network to their target clients.

These companies have been awarded the MVNO licences under the ‘Application Service Provider (ASP)’ category, which allows them to offer several mobile money services related services.