Ecobank, The Pan-African bank announced the appointment of MFS Africa as digital payment partner enabling cross-platform payment services for Ecobank account holders. The partnership allows Ecobank customers to send and receive money to and from over 170 million mobile money users through an integration with MFS Africa that covers all Telcos in the MFS Africa Hub. The service is both domestic and cross -border intra-Africa transfers leveraging Rapid transfer, a proprietary instant remittance product of Ecobank.

Ecobank operates in 33 African countries, serving over twenty million customers. In line with the bank’s digital strategy, the partnership with MFS Africa Hub creates the first major initiative of interoperability between bank account and mobile money customers. This brings greater value for mobile money customers as they can now send money directly to any bank account in Ecobank without infrastructural hinderances; conversely Ecobank customers can do the same.

MFS Africa operates the largest mobile payments hub network in sub-Saharan Africa, connecting over 170 million mobile wallets, and a wide network of money transfer operators and merchants. Through partnerships with mobile network operators including MTN, Orange, Airtel, Moov, Econet, Tigo, Safaricom and Vodafone, MFS Africa allows mobile financial services to scale across borders, currencies and networks with a Pan African Bank like Ecobank.

“The partnership between Ecobank and MFS Africa represents a significant step in building pan-African linkages between mobile money services and traditional banking channels”, says Ade Ayeyemi, CEO of Ecobank Group.

“Typically, banks and other financial service providers seeking to integrate to mobile wallet systems are confined to domestic markets with almost no interoperability among networks in a single country, let alone across borders, severely inhibiting utility, efficiency, and customer experience. The collaboration between Ecobank Banking Group and MFS Africa eliminates this hurdle and accelerates the ecosystem, driving financial inclusion and offering a greater range of options to Africans”

While conventional wisdom pits banks and mobile money services against each other as incumbents threatened by disruptors, the reality is quite different. Interoperable cross platform services expand the pie of financial possibilities, bringing more choice and value to consumers using bank accounts or mobile wallets, and leveraging the strengths of both types of players.

Speaking on the partnership, Dare Okoudjou, founder and CEO of MFS Africa says that the region’s financial inclusion landscape offers exciting opportunities for innovation and collaboration between Banks, other financial institutions, Mobile Money Operators and Fintech.

“We’re proud to offer seamless payments across networks and borders into the next frontier of financial inclusion – mobile wallets – to Ecobank customers. Historically, the relationship between banks and fintech has been competitive but Ecobank has demonstrated a win-win approach to partnership that takes care of every stakeholder in the value chain. Ecobank is the first financial institution that shares the MFS Africa vision to make financial services more seamless, convenient, and intero perable across Africa”.

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The Bank of Africa (BOA) in partnership with Jubilee Insurance last weekend launched a countrywide Tot 2 Teens savings campaign in which all parents in Uganda can enjoy up to 25 million in free life insurance and hospital cover.

The campaign which runs through the festive season to early 2019 also covers free medical check-ups, a zero monthly management fees, a free money box and great interest rates. The campaign runs through the festive season to early 2019.

Speaking at the launch of the campaign in Kampala, Stella Atim, the bank’s Head of Retail Banking at said “We are excited to have Jubilee Insurance as our partner of this amazing product and the Tot 2 Teens product is aimed at encouraging parents and children to start saving at an earlier age while enjoying a free insurance benefit.”

She said the interplay between insurance and banking is a critical strategy in supporting the penetration of insurance in the country which is below 1 percent and one of the lowest in the region. “Bank of Africa is one of the few licensed banks operating a Bancassurance business in the country,” Atim said

The Tots 2 Teens account comes with full life assurance component on the product for death, critical illness and permanent disability. The bank also provides financial literacy programs to children which provide a solid base their latter financial freedom and security in life.

The Tots 2 Teens activity is happening a cross all the BOA’s 35 branches in the country for the entire festive season and into 2019 and parents from all walks of life have been invited to visit any branch and register their children for the Tots 2 Teens product.

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The East African Community (EAC) tax authorities have committed to push for the harmonisation of domestic taxes in the region in order to deepen trade and investment.

In the latest joint communiqué released in Nairobi, Kenya, the commissioners general of the revenue authorities of Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi also said they had agreed to enhance tax compliance.

The harmonisation of domestic taxes is expected to be achieved by developing a common customs management system to replace the independent systems used at individual state partner states of the EAC.

“This will enhance information sharing and help prevent cross-border fraud,” said the statement issued at the end of the 45th East Africa Revenue Authorities Commissioners General (EARACGs) meeting that was held days ago.

“To further deepen the EAC Common Market, RAs resolved to more boldly champion the domestic tax harmonisation agenda with a view to removing internal distortions to the free movement of labour and investment flows,” added the communiqué.

The officials agreed to implement the electronic East African Community Customs Valuation System to enable value benchmarking of various goods.

The major goal of these meetings is to ensure that the revenue agencies in the region work together towards the harmonization of tax regimes in the region aimed at fostering competitiveness, employment, and further contribute to the sustainability of public finances and eventually economic growth in the region.

The East African Revenue Authorities Technical Committee (EARATC) helps the Commissioners General to identify challenges, carry out studies and analyse technical issues in tax administration. The committee also provides appropriately researched recommendations in line with international best practice and subsequently ensure implementation of the agreed recommendations.

The EARATC’s key achievements in the past few years include; the annual publication of the Regional Comparative Revenue Report, Performance Based Pay, Succession Management Framework, technical assistance to South Sudan in establishing her revenue administration, study and analysis of production sharing agreements, identification of inadequacies in the laws targeting the extractive industry, among others.

Other achievements include; addressing emerging concern on increased volume of transit of sensitive goods through Kenya and Tanzania to non-EAC countries, harmonization of tax procedures, establishment of forensic laboratories, tax payment through electronic devices, formation of international tax offices, taxation of multinational corporations, and making revenue authorities to be a single revenue collector.

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