Nairobi, 11th February 2014: Paynet, a full payments service provider for
banks and mobile money companies in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and
South Sudan has today announced a merger of its PesaPoint agent network
with that of Pep Intermedius – to further grow the PesaPoint brand and
expand its network.
Pep Intermedius, one of Kenya’s leading agent aggregators, has been running
an exclusive chain of over 150 agent outlets offering mobile money and
agency banking services -including agents’ outlets at all the 40 Nakumatt
stores countrywide.
The merger now places the PesaPoint network among the largest mobile money
and agent banking networks in Kenya with more than 1500 agent outlets,
positioning it for strong multi-institutions partnership with banks,
financial service providers and mobile money providers.
Currently, PesaPoint runs a multi-stakeholder ATM network that serves about
13 million customers from 32 financial institutions and two mobile money
networks (M-PESA and Airtel Money). It also has 1350 existing PesaPoint
Agent locations which vend airtime and card cash-out services.
Commenting on the merger, Bernard Matthewman, Paynet Group CEO said the
merged agents network would take advantage of the huge growth and demand
for financial services touch points and deliver to Kenyans ‘multiple
products and services’ through a single agent network. “We have the
technology to power innovations in POS, mobile and mPOS based agent
services for banks, financial services providers and mobile money providers
whilst Pep Intermedius manages one of the most advanced agency networks.
Our merger with them will bring the right combination of expertise to build
and manage the most successful multi-stakeholder agent network for
PesaPoint in the country. There is significant potential for this business
to grow rapidly both in terms of the number of locations as well as the
range of financial service providers it serves,” he said.
Frederik Eijkman, CEO of Pep Intermedius-on his part- said the merger would
be exciting news for the industry given the record of innovation that the
PesaPoint brand has with banks and mobile money providers. “PesaPoint has
achieved a number of ‘firsts’ in the market. This is the spirit we continue
with in the agent network where we see more innovations coming to the
market in partnership with mobile money providers and banks,” he said.
Mr Eijkman said the new network would launch in the near future a
‘pioneering range of new transactions services’: “Like a financial
supermarket we will bring the broadest possible range of services to
consumers including mobile money, agency banking, bill payment, airtime
sales, ticketing, lotteries and even micro insurance,” he said.
“Multiple services through one channel will bring more value to the
individual agent or shop owner and it will provide a one-stop shop for
customers who for example need to do a number of transactions such as
access to cash from cards or mobile money and pay bills or buy airtime.”
Mr Eijkman continued. “With the merger, the distribution of financial
services will further enhance economic and social development. Paynet and
Pep together with their agents are proud to be contributing to the
financial inclusion agenda.”
Mr. Eijkman will head the new PesaPoint agent network. PesaPoint was the
first independent ATM network in Kenya and connects customers to card
services from various banks at low cost, provides card-less transactions
for mobile money users, vends electronic airtime for all telecommunications
networks and provides ATM bill payments and revenue collection service for
multiple billers. More recently PesaPoint developed an agent network based
initially on POS technology that runs in parallel with its pervasive ATM
network.
ENDS
About Paynet Group
Paynet Group, www.paynet.co.ke, is East Africa’s largest payment services
provider. From its payments centre in Nairobi, the company processes
millions of card transactions every month for partner banks, mobile money
providers and corporate customers. It was the first company in the region
to support Mobile Money ATM Withdrawals (card-less) for M-PESA and Airtel
Money-a service offered by its PesaPoint brand rolled out to over 1000 ATMs
belonging to 6 banks on the PesaPoint interconnect network. Paynet is also
working with Vodacom in Tanzania to launch M-PESA Auto Agents on ATMs
belonging to partner banks.
Paynet has its headquarters n Nairobi, Kenya, with an office in Tanzania
and customers in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan. Its subsidiaries
include Electronic Financial Technologies (EFT) which provides ATMs, POS,
and ATM management service as well as cheque truncation support for banks,
PesaPoint-Kenya’s largest independent national ATM network service, Paynet
Kenya and Paynet Tanzania. PesaTransact will manage PesaPoint’s new agent’s
network.
For more information www.paynet.co.ke