E-Financial
Safaricom Pilots Messaging App Linked to Mobile money
Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest telecoms company, is piloting a social messaging app that will link to its mobile money platform in an attempt to move the company into the application business.
Bonga, meaning ‘chat’ in Kiswahili, will be integrated with the company’s popular financial services platform M-Pesa to enable the almost 28 million of its users to communicate beyond sending money to one another, transforming the platform into a type of social network.
The idea stems from the “hypothesis that there’s an intricate connection between conversations and transactions, payments especially,” Kamal Bhattacharya, chief innovation officer at Safaricom, said in a telephone interview.
“It’s one thing to share information with somebody, it’s another thing to make a payment, to send money to somebody,” he said.
Bhattacharya said M-Pesa users will be able to message each other on Bonga in three ways: user-to-user, user-to-business and fundraising through “social groups” much like the group function on WhatsApp.
The concept has similarities with China’s top social messaging app WeChat, where users can perform a variety of tasks, from payments to ride-hailing, without leaving the platform.
Bonga is the first product launched by Safaricom’s innovation incubator Alpha. Bhattacharya previously set up IBM’s research lab in Africa and joined the company in 2017.
Safaricom is piloting Bonga internally before planning to launch later this year.
Bhattacharya said the platform will be end-to-end encrypted. “We cannot read the messages, we cannot keep the messages,” he said.
Kenya does not have data privacy laws.
Safaricom is 35% owned by South African group Vodacom and 5% by Vodacom’s major shareholder Vodafone.
With nearly 30 million users, the company has 70% of Kenya’s total mobile phone subscribers.
The introduction of Bonga is part of Safaricom’s strategy to boost revenue and diversify from offerings of voice calls, mobile money and text messages. Last year it launched Masoko, an e-commerce platform.
Its first-half 2017 results showed revenue from mobile money rose 16%, while revenue from phone calls rose by far less: only 4%.
“Our future is to become a platform that enables business in Kenya as well as our consumers to do their work in a different way,” Bhattacharya said. “Messenger platforms are the most popular apps, the most popular approach on the Internet today to bring people together.”
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has slammed a ₦250 million fine on Paystack for operating Zap, its peer-to-peer payment app, as a wallet in breach of its regulatory approval.
The apex bank flagged Zap as a deposit-taking product, a function reserved exclusively for institutions with microfinance or banking licences, according to a report by TechCabal.
Launched in March, Zap allows users to send and receive money, positioning itself as a consumer-facing digital wallet.
However, Paystack only holds a switching and processing licence, which permits it to facilitate transactions but not to hold customer funds. This regulatory limitation is at the heart of the CBN’s sanction, sources familiar with the matter said.
“Paystack is working closely with the regulator as they further review Zap, and out of respect for the process, we won’t be making any public comments at this time,” a company spokesperson said.
The penalty comes amid a legal dispute between Paystack and Zap Africa, a Nigerian crypto startup, which has accused the fintech of trademark infringement.
In Nigeria’s highly regulated financial services space, digital wallets are considered deposit-taking entities, and offering such services without the requisite licence raises compliance concerns for the regulator.
Although Zap reportedly does not directly hold customer funds, it operates in partnership with Titan Trust Bank, which is authorised to accept deposits.
This is Paystack’s most significant publicly disclosed regulatory sanction since it received CBN approval in 2016. It reveals the growing scrutiny facing fintech firms as they transition from enterprise-focused offerings to consumer-facing financial services.
Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) has announced an increase in its SMS transaction alert fee from ₦4 to ₦6 per message, effective May 1, 2025. The bank cited a recent rise in telecommunication tariffs by service providers as the reason for the adjustment.
In a message to customers, GTBank explained that SMS alerts sent to international phone numbers would attract higher charges due to varying telecom costs. The bank emphasized the importance of transaction alerts in helping customers monitor account activity
Customers who no longer wish to receive SMS alerts have the option to update their alert preferences by submitting a form available on the bank’s website via email. This move allows customers to manage their notification preferences according to their needs.
The fee increase affects GTBank customers, who will now be charged ₦6 per SMS alert for transactions
Union Bank of Nigeria Plc is facing a major financial scandal after hackers reportedly siphoned N9.3 billion from multiple customer accounts.
The breach, which occurred on March 23, 2025, has led to an urgent legal battle as the bank seeks to freeze accounts suspected of receiving the stolen funds.
Court filings reveal that the cybercriminals exploited a critical system glitch, discreetly transferring the money in small amounts across 54 financial institutions to evade detection.
Oluwasegun Falola, Union Bank’s Head of E-Fraud Investigations, confirmed that tracking the transactions has been challenging due to their fragmented nature.
Acting swiftly, the bank filed a lawsuit (FHC/L/CS/629/2025) at the Federal High Court in Lagos, requesting an emergency order to halt further withdrawals. On April 2, 2025, the bank’s legal team, led by A. Adedoyin-Adeniyi, informed the court that the stolen funds were still being actively moved—suggesting an ongoing laundering operation.
In response, Justice Deinde Dipeolu granted a Post No Debit (PND) order, freezing all implicated accounts pending further investigation.
This crisis comes just 15 months after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) dissolved Union Bank’s former board over governance failures. Under the leadership of MD Yetunde Oni, the bank now faces intense scrutiny as customers demand accountability.
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