Digital Migration Halted by KTN NTV and CITIZEN

The much hyped shift from analogue to digital migration has been postponed again after three TV networks namely KTN CITIZEN and NTV moved to court accusing The Communication Authority of Kenya of being biased while distributing Licences and frequencies.The three television stations were not happy with their allocation of 21  frequencies which they said

were not enough.Recently the three stations released an advertisement hitting out at competing pay tv companies GO tv and STARTIMES and asking viewers not to buy set-top -boxes from them. Pay tv companies like DSTV GO TV and STARTIMES have been experiencing a bumper harvest since the Communications Authority of Kenya announced 31st of December as the deadline for analogue transmission. Set boxes have been going at a rate of 2,000 each. Some companies like GO tv have been giving two months subscription free with each purchase.The global deadline for analogue transmission is June 30th 2015.

The ruling by the Supreme court is a sigh of relief for millions of viewers who had not yet migrated to digital by buying set-top- boxes. It is also a sigh of relief for the three media houses in terms of advertisers revenues which are the main source of income for them.

Kenyans have been known to be last minutes scramblers and the june 30th deadline fast approaching might see them caught between a rock and a very hard place.

WhatsApp Launch Desk Top Version of Messenger

World's No. one messaging Platform WhatsApp  has announced that users can now send messages from desk tops. Unfortunately for  iphone users this service will not be accessible to them. This, Whatsapp which was recently acquired by Facebook at a whopping $19 Billion is due to apples platform limitations.
Users who wish to use this service via their desktop browsers will be required to follow these 7 easy steps

With the new version a feature called Whatsapp web has been added.You have to link your mobile Whatapp with the web version.
Step 1. Go to this link https://web.whatsapp.com/  Note: use google chrome

Step 2. You will see a QR Code something that looks like this

Step 3.Go to whatsapp on your phone and go to the menu

Step 4. You will see an item named whatsapp web

Step 5. Click on it, it will open a QR reader, a camera for reading the QR code

Step 6. With the qr reader open, scan the QR code on the computer screen
 
step 7. You should connect to the whatsapp web and you can start using the messaging services. It remains connected as long as your phone is on.
 
Whatsapp recently reported that it had 700 million users sending out 30 billion messages daily. Despite these staggering statistics Facebook recently disclosed that Whatsapp only made a profit of $15 million and a loss of $230 million

Currently the company charges $0.99 annually to it's users.

Drop in cards payments to affect Banks

Payments via cards experienced a dip as mobile payments experienced a spike. High uptake of mobile payments which has proved to be very convenient and popular with consumers has contributed to the growth.Banks are likely to suffer most as they have been enjoying lucrative commissions through Cards payments. Equity bank Africa's Biggest banks by customer base rakes in a whopping 40 million monthly in cards payments  processing commissions from volumes of 1.8 billion monthly. Equity has a customer base of 8 Million. This fall in card payments revenue comes in the wake of Cards migration to new generation Chip and Pin Cards from Magnetic stripe ones which were prone to too much fraud.Data from the Central Bank of Kenya shows that there are almost 14 million payments cards in use as at November 2014. The landscape for the lucrative retail payments arena now pits the banks totaling 44 against the 6 mobile money platforms. Safaricom with its MPESA flagship mobile money subsidiary has 70 percent of the market share and can be attributed for the spike in the mobile money transactions.
Kenya has 24.9 Million Mobile money users and a vast network of agents 121,000 in all. Mpesa boasts of a network of 32,000 merchants who have already embraced mobile money as their most preferred mode of receiving payments from customers. Some of the merchants which are enjoying quick convenient collections of payment are utility companies like Kenya power, and Nairobi water.Pay TV companies like DSTV, GO tv . A host of other merchants are hoping into the bandwagon. It will be interesting to see what new strategies banks will bring to the table.
The Mobile money platforms are MPESA MOBICASH Airtel Money Yu Cash Orange Money and Tangaza

List of Kenyan Commercial Banks

    ABC Bank  

    Bank of Africa

    Bank of Baroda

    Bank of India

    Barclays Bank Kenya

    CfC Stanbic Holdings

    Chase Bank Kenya

    Citibank

    Commercial Bank of Africa

    Consolidated Bank of Kenya

    Cooperative Bank of Kenya

    Credit Bank

    Development Bank of Kenya

    Diamond Trust Bank

    Dubai Bank Kenya

    Ecobank Kenya

    Equatorial Commercial Bank

    Equity Bank

    Family Bank

    Fidelity Commercial Bank Limited

    First Community Bank

    Giro Commercial Bank

    Guaranty Trust Bank Kenya

    Guardian Bank

    Gulf African Bank

    Habib Bank

    Habib Bank AG Zurich

    Housing Finance Company of Kenya

    I&M Bank

    Imperial Bank Kenya

    Jamii Bora Bank

    Kenya Commercial Bank

    K-Rep Bank

    Middle East Bank Kenya

    National Bank of Kenya

    NIC Bank

    Oriental Commercial Bank

    Paramount Universal Bank

    Prime Bank

    Standard Chartered Kenya

    Trans National Bank Kenya

    United Bank for Africa

    Victoria Commercial Bank