I am able to remit money to my Equity Bank A/c from the diaspora, via an intermediary bank, paying much less compared to using Western Union, Money Gram, Ria among others.

Here is the logic, paying a utility bill online is free. Similarly, transfering money from my account abroad to my account in Kenya is like paying a bill. Yes, and legally. However, note that any transfers above $10,000 have to be reported to CBK for good security reasons (drugs, money laundering, terrorism etc). So to avoid unnecessary attention to your accounts, always transfer less than $10,000, or equivalent € or GBP!

Remitting from Europe, proceed as follows:

1. Enter the IBAN, SWIFT code and Address of the correspondent bank in the “BENEFICIARY DETAILS” field. In my example, it’s;
DE485021 09004116 9310 07 Citibank Frankfurt, NEUE MAINZER STRASSE 75 60311 FRANKFURT, GERMANY

2. In the “free text” or “notes to payee” field, fill in the payment instruction as follows:
Beneficiary bank: Equity Bank Ltd, Swift: EQBLKENA; A/C No: 0XXXXXXXXXXXX, Jack & Jill Kamau a/c @ Mama Ngina Street Branch, Nairobi.

For other currencies, get intermediary Bank details in the EB link below:
http://www.equitybank.co.../products.php?subcat=87

I gave an example of EB because that is the one I use. For other banks, find out that yourself!

In my example it takes 48 hours. The higher the amount the higher the saving on the transfer charges.