Airtel Money has completed the split of its mobile money business from its telecommunications business. This Journey started back in 2019 and has led to the formation of Airtel Money Kenya Limited which will effectively handle the mobile money arm. Back in July, Airtel Money Kenya Limited appointed Rose Mambo as Chair.
“The completion of this restructuring enables AMKL to ring-fence its operations and focus exclusively on its mobile money business. Significantly, this sets the foundation for AMKL to enhance governance over its mobile money business, strengthen its operations, and offer better services to its customers.CBK licensed AMKL as a Payment Service Provider (PSP) in line with the National Payment System Act, 2011 on January 21, 2022, and also granted a transition period to complete the transfer,” a statement by the CBK reads.
“CBK has engaged PSPs to ensure that the activities under CBK’s supervision are appropriately ring-fenced from other business lines. This will allow the PSPs to protect their CBK-regulated activities from shocks emanating from the other business activities, strengthen governance, enhance resilience, and focus on improving its services to Customers,” the statement concluded.
M-Pesa to split from Safaricom
Airtel Money becomes the first mobile money service to be separated from a teclo’s core business. Safaricom is expected to do the same with M-Pesa with the split expected as early as January 2023. The exact structure after the split is still unknown but many are speculating that a holding company will be created and have both Safaricom and M-Pesa as two legal entities under it.