Equity Bank’s digital payment platform, Pay With Equity (previously called EazzyPay), recorded a 393% growth in transactions translating to 131.5 million transactions while the volume of business transacted rose by 281% to stand at Kshs 524 billion during the 2022 financial year. During the same period under review, internet banking transactions grew by 212% to stand at 10.7 million transactions while the value grew by 136% to Kshs 311 billion.
According to Equity Group, Pay with Equity (abbreviated as PWE) is the latest breakthrough in Equity’s digital transformation journey and the fastest-growing digital channel.
Pay with Equity is a free platform for both users and shoppers. PWE enables mobile subscribers to pay for goods and services easily and conveniently to one merchant Till Number. The interoperability feature of the PWE platform means that subscribers can pay from Equitel, Eazzybanking App, Pesalink, M-Pesa and Airtel Money. Settlements for PWE transactions are real time and merchants are able to access these funds immediately thus offering more convenience to them. Merchants are not charged any commissions when they have the One Equity Till Number.
To fuel efficiency and global competitiveness of the entire economy, Equity has opted to support the public and its entire customer base by offering free e-Commerce and digital capabilities through PWE 800,000 mobile payment rails, while retaining free mobile transactions for its customers within the Group. To support its shareholders during the challenging financial and economic environment, the Group has increased its dividend payout from Kshs 3 per share to Kshs 4 per share, a growth of 33.3% payout to record a dividend yield of 9% on the 50 cents par value on its shares and a dividend multiple of 8x.
“The COVID-19 environment acted as a tailwind for business transformation through innovation and digital adoption. 97% of all Group transactions are on customer self-service on own devices driving efficiency gains, ease and convenience to customers and reduction of fixed and variable costs. The Group’s latest breakthrough is digital e-Commerce payments through Pay with Equity (PWE) rails following the wave of mobile and internet banking usage by customers” said Dr. James Mwangi, the Equity Group MD and CEO as he released the 2022 financial results at the end of March 2023.
According to the results, part of the Group’s business transformation, innovation and digitization is aimed to enable the transition from fixed cost to third party variable cost channels and self-service platforms. This has seen 97% of the group’s transactions now being conducted outside physical branches and at network while 73% of Equity’s transaction values is also happening through digital platforms.
Equity’s physical bank branches are now mainly handling high-value transactions for SME and corporate clients, wealth management and providing advisory services.
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