Zain announced plans yesterday to bring its mobile banking service Zap, to all of its 22 operations across Middle East and Africa, with the initial programme being launched in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Zain has overcome regulatory hurdles in to launch the Zap M-banking service Kenya, and will compete with Safaricom’s M-Pesa service which has five million registered users

The Kuwaiti operator has partnered with leading international and regional banks including Citigroup and Standard Chartered to launch the mobile banking service in the three East African countries.

The service will allow Zap users across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to use their mobile phone to pay bills for goods and services, make remittances to other mobile users or bank accounts, top up airtime, send airtime to other Zain customers within the three countries, and to manage their bank accounts.

“With a potential customer base of over 100 million people in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, many of whom have never had access to formal financial services, we believe Zap will reshape the future of banking in Africa,” stated Saad Al Barrak, CEO of Zain Group.

With yesterday’s launch, Zain has overcome some earlier delays which it faced in gaining regulatory approval for its banking service in Kenya. Earlier this month, Zain Kenya’s CEO Rene Menza stated that the Central Bank was holding up the award of the banking licence to Zain, and as a result the operator was considering legal action, according to local news reports.

Now that Zain has the green light to launch Zap in Kenya, it will face strong competition from market leader Safaricom which not only has market share of 80 per cent, but its highly successful M-Pesa service has been the flagship mobile remittance and banking service in Africa, and has just hit five million registered users. Transactions in Q308 amounted to KES9.6 billion (US$135 million).

Zain, which is the fourth largest mobile network in the world by geographic presence, has not announced when it plans to extend the service to its other subsidiaries.

Image courtesy of GSMA and Decisive Media

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Omantel recorded a 67 per cent drop in fourth quarter net profit to OMR9.744 million (US$25.31 million) on the back of OMR18.88 million of impairment losses related to its Pakistan subsidiary Worldcall Telecom.

"Deteriorating market conditions in Pakistan due to global financial crisis had an impact on the value of strategic investment made in Pakistan," the operator said in a statement.

Omantel’s full yet profit attributable to shareholders in 2008 came to OMR116.714 million, up 4.2 per cent from OMR112.032 million a year earlier.

The company’s customer base rose 58.1 per cent to 2.955 million subscribers, with 836,000 subscribers in Pakistan. State-controlled Omantel holds 56.8 per cent of Worldcall, which also operates in Sri Lanka.

Comium Data, the Internet arm of Middle East and Africa telecoms provider Comium Group Holding, has secured a broadband wireless Internet licence in Rwanda, giving it a foothold to bring WiMAX to the east African country.

The Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency (RURA) awarded the licence, bringing Comium Data’s wireless Internet and data licences to 11. The provider’s footprint extends across East and West Africa, as well as Lebanon, where the company’s operations are headquartered.

The company’s vision is to be the leading operator in Africa in the provision of broadband wireless Internet using the WiMAX standard. Other countries where it has licences include Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zambia, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Burundi.

“Rwanda is a market with remarkable growth potential and we believe that Comium Data will be able to offer services that truly enrich people’s lives as well as making major economic contribution to the country through enabling better and more sophisticated communications,” stated Tony Ghattas, chief operational officer of Comium Data.

As part of the Rwandan government’s 2020 vision, the ICT sector is being given prime importance as the country pursues socio-economic development. It is estimated that Rwanda’s ICT sector surpassed the US$50 million mark last year.

Regionally, Comium Group Holding operates mobile and fixed networks in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and The Gambia. The group offers a diverse portfolio of telecoms and Internet services across 17 countries in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

Unitech Wireless, an Indian GSM licensee in which Norway’s Telenor is purchasing a 60 per cent stake, has signed tower sharing agreements with Wireless-TT Info Service Limited – Tata Teleservices’ tower subsidiary – and Quippo Telecom Infrastructure Limited. Tata Teleservices has also agreed to provide transmission to the new mobile operator.

Unitech Wireless has the rights to use 40,000 towers from Tata and Quippo, with 22,000 sites to be available by April 2009

The tower sharing agreement allows Unitech Wireless to mount its mobile network antennas onto existing towers owned by Tata and Quippo, as well as any new towers that are built. The two India tower companies are currently in the process of merging their businesses to become one of the country’s largest tower companies.

Telenor said the agreement covers approximately 40,000 sites, of which approximately 22,000 sites will be in place by April 2009. The remaining towers will be built in 2009 and 2010 in accordance with Unitech Wireless’ needs. The tower sharing and transmission agreements both have 20-year terms with options to extend the contracts for a subsequent 5-year period.

"The tower and transmission agreements are key elements in the process of closing our Unitech Wireless deal, and will enable Unitech Wireless to embark on a swift and cost-efficient roll-out," stated Jon Fredrik Baksaas, president and CEO of Telenor.

Unitech Wireless has licences to roll out its network in all 22 of India’s telecommunications circles and Telenor announced its intention to buy the majority stake in Unitech Wireless in October 2008 for US$1.07 billion.

The Nordic company decided last month to withdraw its rights issue to fund the investment in the Indian company, and would instead finance it through a combination of cash flow and issuance of additional debt. Telenor is scheduled to present its Indian investment case to investors and analysts on February 13.

Alfa, Lebanon’s second GSM operator, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) to roll out the country’s first 3G trial network, to go live by June this year.

The network will cover universities in the greater Beirut area as part of a University Cooperation Programme, and will include coverage of the American University of Beirut, ESIB University and the Universite Libanaise. The programme aims to raise awareness among university students of 3G services, and will terminate on December 31, 2009.

NSN will provide the required 3G radio equipment, sponsor the marketing campaign, and coordinate with the universities and other related parties to launch the programme.

State-owned Alfa started a one-year management contract with Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, from February 1. Orascom is charged with increasing the number of Alfa’s mobile subscribers from 600,000 at the end of 2008 to one million by the end of this year. Alfa’s competitor MTC Touch is managed by Kuwait’s Zain under a similar contract, and had 800,000 customers as of December last year.