The Communications Authority (CA) has defended its decision to award Equity Bank a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) licence with which the lender is seeking to penetrate mobile banking industry. Equity has said it applied for and was awarded an application service provider and a content service provider licence in a transparent manner. In the mean time, London-based GSMA, the global association of telecoms operators using the GSM technology, has written to the Kenyan authorities warning of the risks that use of the slim SIM cards pose to the integrity of the mobile telecommunications platforms. The GSMA says the overlay SIM (which is embedded between a normal SIM card and the device) has the potential of harvesting and revealing sensitive data passing the system. The technical opinion risks further delaying Equity’s use of the thin SIM to enter the lucrative mobile money market. Equity says the thin SIM it intends to use does not have the capacity to hack or crack the service and connections of the primary SIM or any meaningful encryption or security mechanisms by itself.

Equity will be using the thin SIM to allow it run a competing mobile based money transfer service. This is after a fall out between Safaricom and Equity Bank over the Mkesho service which was replaced by Mshwari