Africa-Press – Kenya. Airtel has cleared that last hurdle in the separation of its mobile money business from its core operations run under Airtel Networks Kenya Limited (ANKL).
The Central Bank of Kenya yesterday announced that Airtel Money has successfully been separated from the general telecommunications business.
The cash service will now operate under Airtel Money Kenya Limited (AMKL).
The separation journey dates back to 2019 when the regulator licensed AMKL as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) and also granted a transition period to complete the transfer.
Both the AMKL and ANKL are now incorporated in the country as separate subsidies of Airtel Africa headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The banking regulator says this is a milestone that would allow the mobile service provider to ring fence its operations and focus on the mobile money business.
“This sets the foundation for AMKL to enhance governance over its mobile money business, strengthen its operations and offer better services to its customers,” CBK said.
The separation is in line with the regulator’s call for PSPs to ensure that activities under its supervision are appropriately ring fenced from other business lines.
“It would allow the service providers to protect their CBK-regulated activities from the other business activities to improve governance and enhance resilience,” said CBK in a statement
It said the effort will also facilitate realisation of the the National Payments Strategy that seeks for a secure, fast, efficient and collaborative payment system that supports financial inclusion and innovations.
The Airtel split shifts the focus back on Kenya’s telco giant Safaricom that has been under a lot of pressure to split its M-Pesa business from telecommunications operations.
MPs, the regulator and other players have maintained that the split will level the playing field for rivals Airtel and Telkom. They argue that Safaricom uses the mobile money service to lock customers to its network.
Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa commenting on the separation issue hinted that this could be actualised by January.
He said this will see the creation of a holding company that will manage the telco’s mobile money services, towers, data services, and the recently launched Ethiopian arm.
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