Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) has appointment the management team that will run its fully-owned mobile banking and payments technology subsidiary, Integrated Payments Services Ltd. (IPSL).
Ms Jennifer Theuri will serve as the new IPSL Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Prior to joining IPSL she has held several senior roles covering the areas of mobile money, near field communications payments technology, and card business. She is a career banker and financial technology (FinTech) expert with over 25 years of experience.
Alongside Ms Theuri, KBA announced the appointment of Mr Michael Mbuthia and Mr Paul Munguti as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Products Manager, respectively.
Mr Mbuthia has a wealth of more than 14 years Information Technology and Business systems design experience. He has previously served in the public and private sectors having worked within the banking, transportation and energy sectors.
Mr Munguti, is an expert in switching technology and service delivery with extensive experience in product development centred on mobile and card technology.
“The entry of this widely experienced team provides IPSL with a solid human capital foundation to facilitate its institutional set up and market rollout. At KBA, we are committed to advancing the financial inclusivity agenda through the rollout of innovative and functional FinTech solutions designed and delivered by IPSL.”
-KBA CEO, Mr Habil Olaka
In 2012, KBA established the Kenya Inter-Participant Transaction Switch project to address the challenge of creating a more integrated and inter-operable retail payments platform. It was meant to facilitate real-time money transfer between banks without going through mobile money products namely, M-Pesa, Airtel Money and Orange Money. To implement the interoperability strategy, KBA formed IPSL as a subsidiary company to manage the commercial aspects and running of the system.
Apart from mobile money transfers, the switch will also shorten the clearance time for cheques which take at least two working days to clear. It will also seek to extend the hours for payments made through real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems that currently process payments between 0800hrs and 1500hrs on weekdays but reflects on receiving accounts after four hours or more.
Financial intermediary products and solutions developed by IPSL will be delivered under the applicable regulatory provisions and regulated by the Central Bank of Kenya.