Airtel Kenya Separate From Mobile Money Product, Airtel Money

Airtel Kenya has made it clear that it will be separating its mobile money product, Airtel Money, and the company itself, Airtel Kenya.

The telecommunications company made this known through an announcement, as it now places Airtel Money under its subsidiary, Airtel Money Kenya Limited.

According to the company’s statement, “Following this business separation, Airtel Money Kenya Limited will take over and continue the provision of the Airtel Money Services, in collaboration with the licensed telecommunications network of Airtel Networks Kenya Limited. The continued use of the Airtel Money Service shall be deemed as proof of the customer’s acceptance of the transfer of their Airtel Money Account and related Customer Data and sharing of the Customer Data between Airtel Money Kenya Limited and Airtel Networks Kenya Limited.”

Airtel Money comes behind Kenya’s top mobile money service, M-PESA, Safaricom’s subsidiary. M-PESA is assumed to have dominated the service market up to about 99 percent.

There are also side talks that M-PESA might follow Airtel’s trend of becoming a separate organization from Safaricom.

Recently, Airtel Kenya sold about 22 percent of Airtel Money, its mobile money service, to raise resources to run the company’s operations.

Through this sale, funds of about $550 million were raised through four companies: Qatar Holding LLC with $200 million, Mastercard with $100 million, Chimera Investment LLC with $50 million, and many other investors.

In comparison, Airtel money has not been able to beat M-PESA market profit; although it has the strength and product quality, users have assumed both organizations’ telecom rivals.

Mobile money operations as introduced in Kenya more than four years ago.

Till and pay bill operations were also introduced in 2022.