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

Friday, October 24, 2014

Nairobi; Kenya: Central Bank Governor Njuguna Ndung’u and senior officials of the Communications Authority (CA) yesterday told MPs that the rollout of Thin SIM on a trial basis for the next one year would not be stopped. They said the rollout would proceed because it was the only way to check the vulnerabilities in the technology and seal loopholes before Equity Bank is granted a freehand to move into the mobile money market. The CBK Governor said the financial and communications industry regulators had worked together to ensure all the technical aspects of the innovation had been considered.

“There’s nobody in this world who has used the Thin SIM card technology to provide mobile money services. We have no one to learn from, that’s why we have this testing period. Once we identify the risks and agree on how to mitigate them, then we will move on,” said Prof Ndung’u during a meeting with the House committee on energy and communications in Nairobi’s Continental House.