Islamic banking mobile money service coming

Dar es Salaam. Mobile phone operator Zantel is eyeing to start Islamic Banking mobile money service next month as it targets religious services which it says were not provided by other companies.

Zantel chief executive officer Mr Benoit Janin said yesterday that they were in the final stages of putting platform and the service will roll out in the beginning of March this year.

“We are partnering with the People’s Bank of Zanzibar (PBZ) which is already doing Islamic Banking and now we are finalizing some technical aspects,” said Mr Janin at the launch of an Islamic learning system called Zantel Madrasa.

He said the firm had lined up more products for 2017 and this was just the beginning.

The mobile money subscribers transacted Sh988.9 billion during the second half of last year as telecom firms become an increasingly important payment avenue, according to Bank of Tanzania.

Zantel partnered with the National Muslim Council also called Bakwata in its Kiswahili acronym to launch the service which would facilitate Muslim teaching to its customers through the interactive voice response and SMS.

Tanzania Chief Sheikh Abubakar Zuberi said learning was endless and now is made even easier through the use of technological revolution.

“This system will simplify learning and we hope Bakwata will reach many Muslims,” he said urging all people to use mobile technology for learning.

Recently, Zantel introduced the fourth generation (4G) network in both Tanzania mainland and Zanzibar.