The maiden mobile money platform in the world, M-Pesa is splitting from its mother telecom company, Safaricom.
The two will become separate entities by January 2023. This split comes after over two years of legislative pressure from—the Kenya Information and Communications (Amendment) Bill, which sought to split all telcos from their mobile money businesses.
The bill is trying to level the playing ground. Major carriers like Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom have unfair advantages over smaller operators.
For Safaricom, having the majority of the carrier business in the country tips the mobile money business in its favour. After splitting the two businesses, a holding company will manage the telco’s mobile money services, towers, data services, and the Ethiopian arm.
Airtel money was the first mobile money (MoMo) operator to separate from its mother company, Airtel Kenya. Telkom Kenya’s T-Kash product might also be on the path to operating as an independent mobile money service.
Ghana
In Ghana, all the mobile money services of the legacy telcos have been separated into entities run by different sets of managements. But the telcos still include reports from their mobile money wings in their period reports.
