Merchant Payments, the new frontier for Equity Bank’s Mobile Banking

Equity Bank is targeting to enlist at least 1 million merchants in the next three years through the lender’s EazzyPay service that allows customers to pay for goods and services using mobile money transfer services.

“Merchants will be charged an average of 1 % commission of the transaction services but for the customer, it will be totally free,” said Dr. James Mwangi, at the launch of the lender’s digital banking strategy recently in Nairobi.

The release from the lender said, “key advantage of EazzyPay is that it’s interoperable, meaning that you can pay for goods and services into the EazzyPay from any mobile money platform be it Mpesa or Airtel Money. Customers will pay for goods and services by sending cash to an assigned EazzyPay Till Number.”

The Bank confirmed that it is now recruiting kiosks, shops, supermarkets, airlines, petrol stations, hotels, canteens and schools at the rate of 1,000 merchants per day.

The key benefit for merchants is that the new service will allow for cash paid to reflect in their Equity Bank accounts in real time, which will reduce the risk of stressing over working capital because of the lag time they currently experience between when the transaction occurred and when the cash paid is credited to the merchants account.

Merchants will additionally earn extra income in commissions from Cash Back services that are possible with EazzyPay as well as airtime sales for all telecom operators. The Cash Back service allows customers that are shopping to pay for their goods as well as withdraw cash. They pay for the goods and withdraw cash at the same time.

From the rlease it is clear that Bank branches will transition to centers of excellence focusing on high value transactions banking for SME and corporate banking.

The EazzyPay service is a core pillar of the bank’s digital strategy that was unveiled early this month. The EazzyPay service allows customers to:

• pay for goods and services, using their Equitel mobile lines from their Equitel Menu
• or pay using the Eazzy App (Equity Bank’s app) which can be downloaded on your phone from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
• or pay from any other mobile money wallet straight into EazzyPay