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ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Kenya's Safaricom is in "advanced talks" with the Ethiopian government to introduce its popular M-Pesa mobile money service, a major step towards establishing a toe-hold in the market of 100 million people, two sources said on Tuesday.
Britain's Vodafone, Safaricom's ultimate parent company, will Use of the M-Pesa Trade Name to an Ethiopia-based Bank While Safaricom will host the servers in Nairobi, one Kenyan telecom industry source told Reuters.
Ethiopia's state monopoly telecommunications, Ethio Telecom, will carry the service, the source added.
Started in 2007, M-Pesa has nearly 30 million users in Kenya and has become the dominant driver of profit growth for the dominant telecoms provider in Africa.
M-Pesa's move also suggests Kenyan businesses, from telecoms to banking to farming, are in the process of becoming more liberalized by the new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Nairobi-based firms have had their eye on the country's economic situation and lack of economic development. However, until this year, Addis has continued to be involved in the economy at arms' length.
The head of Kenya's biggest bank by badets, the KCB Group, told Reuters last week the latest news of the economy.
Ethiopia's banking sector is currently state-controlled and dominated by the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, which holds about 70 percent of badets in the sector, according to badyst estimates.
Safaricom declined to comment.
Reporting by Maggie Fick and Duncan Miriri; Editing by Ed Cropley
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