Airtel Money targets M-Pesa tuff during servers’ relocation

Airtel Kenya made this announcement through a tweet posted on its timeline on twitter: “Messed up by your mobile money service? Send & receive money across networks via Airtel Money for free.”

This comes a few days after the telecom’s rival Safaricom announced that it will halt their M-Pesa services between dates 18th and 19th April as they relocate their M-Pesa servers from Germany to Kenya.

With Airtel Money, subscribers can pay their bills, transfer money, and cater for their daily financial needs without ever entering a bank. The service is further enhanced by Airtel’s ‘One Network’ which allows all Airtel Money users to move freely across geographical borders and be treated as a local customer in any one of the ‘One Network’ countries.

Locally with Airtel Money Airtel, subscribers can make payments of KRA services, including payment of taxes. Airtel Money registered customers to buy various GSM bundles and pay directly from their Airtel Money wallet as opposed to their Airtime account as well as get “Bima Mkononi service from Pan African Life Insurance where the Airtel Money users can cover themselves and a family member for a weekly minimum premium that will be deducted each week from the customer’s Airtel Money account.

Other offers include Airtel Money Jambojet service which allows customers to book and pay for their jambojet plane tickets via Airtel Money, from the comfort of their phones and The Airtel Money VISA card, an Airtel Money product powered by VISA and Chase bank which allows customers to, withdrawal Airtel Money at any local VISA or Kenswitch ATM, withdrawal Airtel Money at any international VISA ATM and shop or make payments at any VISA accepting merchants worldwide

According to Statistics by CA in the second quarter of the financial year 2014/2015, during the quarter under review, the number of mobile money transfer subscriptions stood at 26.0 million down from 27.4 million recorded during the last quarter, representing a decline of 5.3 percent. This could be attributed to the exit from the market by Essar Telecom Limited (yu) which held 2.1 million mobile money transfer subscriptions representing 7.8 percent market share by end of the previous quarter. Finserve, a Mobile Virtual Network Operator licensed in 2014 joined the market and recorded 394,606 subscriptions during the quarter under review.

During the same period, Safaricom recorded 20,150,836 subscriptions in October up from 19,945,702 in September while Airtel Money recorded 3,236,016 in October a drop from 3,278,339 in September.