Equity Group is set to start distributing the second bunch of a million Equitel SIM Cards after it got approval from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), which also allocated it their next prefix.

This was confirmed by John Staley, Chief Officer – Finance, Innovation and Technology during an interview with the Standard. He did not, however, disclose what the new prefix will be, but said the bank will start distributing them soon. “The Equitel brand has been growing fast and we were forced to order for more SIM cards after the ones we had in stock got finished,” said Staley who added that the bank was satisfied with the rate of growth of its mobile brand.

Equitel posted a growth of 81 per cent up from 62 per cent growth in mobile banking between the month of October 2014 and March 2015 and the subscribers number grew up from 209,554 subscribers in March 2014 to reach 665,661 subscribers in March 2015.

The bank did not, however, indicate the current figure of subscribers but there was speculation it had gone beyond the one million mark by the time it was applying for the new prefixes from the CA. Already, the bank is said to be “pleased and surprised” with the high uptake rate of Equitel in the pilot phase.

The product has not been launched officially and the management said it was planning to do so soon.
It has been operational for about half a year now, and the bank’s official records show it has been netting between 3,000 to 4,000 new customers on a daily basis, a development Staley says, has put Equitel as the fastest developing Mobile Virtual Network (MVN) brand in the world. “In all the countries where the model operates, companies net hundreds of thousands after several years but we managed that feat in a couple of months. The growth is impressive and we hope to do more,” said Staley.

Equity has been looking to launch the technology since the regulator granted its subsidiary Finserve-along with two other companies-an Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) licence in April last year.

“Perception that we have come to take away business from other people is misguided. Equitel is a value addition service that the bank is offering its customers to improve customer experience. We are trying to make banking cheap and as accessible as possible to our 10 million customers,” said Equity Group Holdings CEO James Mwangi.