mKey, an app that converges social and financial services into an integrated lifestyle, has recorded close to 100,000 downloads since its official launch in early September.
Finserve, the fintech that operates mKey, has reported that as at the end of October 99,970 users had downloaded the keyboard app with 309 000 transactions worth Sh17.8 million having been processed over this period.
Keyboard app is what enables an app to learn automatically and predict the next word that the user intends to type. mKey additionally processed loans worth Sh5.2 million over the same period.
mKey app is targeted at Kenya’s increasingly digital population that is becoming savvier in enhancing their lifestyle through technology and who evidently want to perform financial transactions without visiting a bank or even switching apps. It is available on Google Play Store and developed to run on the Android 4.1 and above, and soon on IOS.
The app’s results come on the heels of a recent report by the Communications Authority of Kenya, which stated that Equitel, another product by Finserve, similarly recorded strong growth over the fourth fiscal quarter (April to June 2018).
Equitel recorded double-digit growth in both the value and number of mobile money commerce transactions, according to the Communications Authority data, processing 87.9 million mobile commerce transactions between April 2018 and June 2018, up from 77.6 million transactions in the preceding quarter. This represented a 13% increase. At the same time the value of mobile commerce transactions increased to Sh328.2 billion, a 13% increase from Sh290.3 billion that was processed over the same period.
Equitel is increasingly growing the volume and value of mobile commerce transactions boosted in part by the EazzyPay Paybill number that allows payments to be received from all mobile money transfer services through the interoperability feature. Equitel further accounted for 23% or Sh328 billion of the Sh1.427 trillion that was transacted in the form of mobile commerce payments.
The volume of person-to-person transfers on the other hand increased by 2% to stand at Sh117 billion from Sh114.1 billion over the same period. Overall the number of transactions processed stood at 140.4 million up from 128.6 million translating to a 9% increase while the value of transactions increased by 6% to stand at Sh413.4 billion from Sh389.3 billion. At the same time, Equitel’s subscription base as at June 2018 was 1.95 million.
