29,000 merchants have been recruited by Equity Bank to accept retail payments via Equitel mobile cash platform.In 2015 the bank began signing up traders to ‘Eazzy Pay Till’ to receive mobile payments from all platforms including rivals M-Pesa and Airtel Money, suggesting a faster growth in enlisting retailers.On Tuseday Equity group CEO James Mwangi said “We now control a third of retail payments in Kenya. This is huge considering the market had one dominant player.”“Mobile payments are now the drivers of e-commerce.”Equity’s mobile money platform has 1.7 million subscribers compared to M-Pesa’s 22.03 million customers, based on their filings for the quarter to March 2017.The growing uptake of mobile cash for retail payments over plastic cards is attributed to convenience, safety, cost, and the shorter settlement cycle. Equity charges retailers using their paybill and till numbers one per cent transaction processing fee.Telcos have been wooing merchants to take up mobile payments by offering them a real-time settlement of deals, with such cash-flow history making enterprises eligible for loans.It seems Equity will be a big competition to Safaricom as it is setting the bar very high.

Share news tips with us here at Hivisasa