Equity Bank, Mastercard sign 10-year agreement

By Peter Ochieng

Equity Bank has signed a customer business agreement with Mastercard.

The agreement is among others, aimed at giving customers a broad range of benefits from a wide selection of Mastercard payment solutions, ranging from World and World Elite cards, corporate cards and virtual cards.

Additionally, customers will be able to perform a range of payments including cross border remittance, e-commerce payments, QR and Tap on phone solutions, courtesy of the 10-year agreement between the two entities.

Equity Bank and Mastercard will collaborate and continuously co-create innovative payment solutions, in tandem with customer changing needs especially in e-commerce, cross border payments and segment-based value propositions.

The partnership will see Equity Bank offer modern payment capabilities across all its subsidiaries in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Speaking during the signing of the agreement, Dr. James Mwangi, Group Managing Director and CEO of Equity Group said the partneship with Mastercard is not only mutually beneficial, but timely.

"We are pleased to scale up our strategic partnership with Mastercard through the Customer Business Agreement. The opportunity to co-create futuristic payment solutions for our customers across all our bank subsidiaries is part of our strategy of delivering a “One Equity” experience across all our markets," he said.

"Equity has become the preferred trade and investment partner in the region, and this makes our value proposition in payments and remittances a central part of our offerings. Our partnership with Mastercard is both mutually beneficial timely and aligned to our customer centric commitment.”

On his part, Mark Elliott, Division President for Sub-Saharan Africa at Mastercard said:

"This alliance underlines our commitment to financial inclusion and digital transformation in Africa. Over the years, we have been working on developing, incubating, and scaling simple and locally relevant digital solutions, building stronger payment ecosystems, and extending acceptance infrastructure to small, mid-sized and micro businesses."

He added, "By working together with Equity Group – the largest financial institution in East Africa – we are setting the pace for an evolved, affordable, and transparent payment ecosystem across Africa," said Mark Elliott, Division President for Sub-Saharan Africa at Mastercard."

Other innovations will include community pass solutions, that will enable farmers and traders to access services via different identification methods such as QR, biometric and facial recognition.