Two Uganda banks launch mobile services

Standard Chartered Bank and the United Bank for Africa (UBA) have launched mobile-phone banking services in Uganda that will enable customers to perform basic banking transactions and receive information about their finances without stepping into banking halls.

Standard Chartered's mobile banking proposition will provide its Ugandan customers with the ability to transfer funds, pay utility bills and request checkbooks via mobile phone on a USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) platform. The bank is implementing the new platform in partnership with Warid Telecom, and it will soon roll out to Zain subscribers.

In order to use the service, customers will simply enter a code provided to them by the bank, explained Herman Kasekende, Standard Chartered's head of retail banking. The bank will charge US$0.29 per mobile banking transaction, while the telecom partners will charge a flat fee of US$0.17 to access the service.

UBA's "e-Alerts" service, launched one day after Standard Chartered's service, provides customers with instant e-mail or SMS (Short Message Service) notification of account activity.

The service is provided upon request, and customers can choose the transaction types for which they would like to receive alerts, explained Joseph Arinaitwe, UBA's head of IT.

In addition to making account monitoring easier, "the product will also minimize incidences of fraud, since customers will be notified about any unauthorized transactions on their accounts," he said.

UBA has entered into service level agreements with all four of Uganda's telecom companies to allow its SMS alert service to run on the networks at a cost of $0.11 to the customer. E-mail alerts will be free.