CBK, CAK Probed Over Equity Bank’s Sim Cards

The two authorities gave their take on Equity Bank's plan to introduce thin sim cards as part of the roll-out of its mobile money service.

The meeting comes days after the bank’s CEO Dr. James Mwangi refuted claims that the thin sim, which can be laid on another sim card, would compromise the privacy of phone users.

In a separate hearing session by the committee, Safaricom called for an independent assessment of the proposed sim card before its introduction.

Equity Bank’s plan to roll out it's own mobile phone financial services platform has been on the cards for the last two months.

Its plans have however been beset by concerns raised over the security of its proposed new service platform.

Safaricom has been skeptical about Equity’s proposal to introduce thin sim cards that fit comfortably on top of another sim card.

It alleges that the use of the thin sim can reveals private data such as user’s pins to third parties.

The bid to stop Equity Bank from using the slim sim cards has so far received the support of the London based GSM association.

The association has already written to the Communications Authority Of Kenya on the information security risks of using the thin sim cards.

By Bonareri Nyamoita