Equity and Mastercard seal payment deal

Equity Bank and Mastercard have entered into a deal that will see the lender tap into the billions that flow into and out of the country.

The Customer Business Agreement will see Equity Bank’s customers in the six countries enjoy a variety of Mastercard payment solutions, including cross-border remittances.

Other payment solutions, offered by Mastercard, a payment-processing corporation, and which will be enjoyed by Equity customers include credit cards, corporate and virtual cards.

In addition to the cross-border remittance, other payments that the customers will be able to perform include e-commerce payments, QR and Tap on phone solutions.

A big chunk of Equity Bank’s foreign exchange earnings has been from diaspora flows, which grew by 146 percent in the first half of this year to account for 12 percent of all client FX volumes.

The two companies promised to come up with new payment solutions in line with customers changing needs, especially in e-commerce, cross-border payments and segment-based value propositions.

“We are pleased to scale up our strategic partnership with Mastercard through the Customer Business Agreement,” said Equity Group CEO James Mwangi.

“The opportunity to co-create futuristic payment solutions for our customers across all our bank subsidiaries is part of our strategy of delivering a “One Equity” experience across all our markets,” added Mwangi.

There has been ferocious competition between commercial banks and mobile network operators, mainly Safaricom for the vast mobile money payments landscape.

SOURCE: BUSINESS DAILY