Telkom Kenya plans to replace its mobile money platform Orange Money amidst continued underperformance in the market. Telkom Kenya chief executive Aldo Mareuse told Business Daily that the company would ditch the current platform because it cannot keep up with the competition. Mareuse said the current platform does not even allow the core products that M-Pesa has and obviously does not allow them to go further, which is what they want.
This lack of functionality is the reason Orange Money did not participate as a placing agent in M-Akiba, Kenya’s first phone-based government bond issue which was sold via Safaricom’s M-Pesa and Airtel Money.
Mareuse said that the new platform will be more cost-efficient and will be launched at the same time the company rebrands before the end of the year.
Separately, Mareuse argued that the telecoms market will continue to be unprofitable for smaller operators until the government can better regulate competition. He, however, rejected proposals to split M-Pesa from Safaricom, as had been proposed in a government-commissioned report.
Telkom Kenya has lost ground in mobile money and voice services. Statistics from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) show that the company shed 19,894 mobile money agents in the quarter to December 2016. At 800, Orange Money has the lowest number of agents among the six mobile money services included in the CA statistics. The company also has the lowest value of transactions at KES 80 million. M-Pesa, Equitel Money and Airtel Money moved KES 892.9 billion, KES 251.6 billion and KES 6.6 billion respectively during the period.
