Two cellcos form mobile money partnership

Two Sri Lankan mobile operators, Dialog Axiata and Etisalat Lanka, have formed a partnership under which Etisalat, the island’s third largest cellco by users, will offer its customers mobile money services over the existing platform operated by mobile market leader Dialog. The announcement was accompanied by Dialog saying that 1.3 million subscribers currently use its ‘eZcash’ branded service, transactions on which now exceed LKR700 million (USD5.35 million) per month, while a cumulative total of more than LKR6 billion in transactions had been made through the mobile payment platform to date. Gerald Rasagu, a mobile money specialist from the GSM Association (GSMA), said it was the first example in the world where two network operators had tied up to use a common branded mobile payment platform.