The new entrants Equity Bank and Zioncell Kenya, will they revolutionalise this industry?

My thinking has always been that Mpesa is 'pure theft'. My believe is founded on, Mpesa was supposed to assist mainly the unbanked population, small traders etc A small trader, for example a shop owner gets 50 cents profit or 1Ksh for each item sold. To send Ksh 5,000 in Mpesa would cost the trader ksh 33 and the other trader will use Ksh 66 to withdraw. Thus the trader will have to sell 33 items and the other trader 66 items to be able to make a single mpesa transaction of Ksh 5000. Won't this impoverish the traders more?

I may be wrong, the tariff should be extremely low for it to achieve the initial intended objective.

I hope the new entrants will make this facility cheaper for the unbanked population.

If you think dr.mwangi is asleep,wait and see how mpesa will be shaken.

Also to put a stop to mpesa draining deposits held in EB. You will rarely need to withdraw from yr EB account to do mobile money transaction. They will have acess to more money in deposit accounts for long-term, to do more profitable biz - loans @ low interest rates. It I hope they also get into voice and data as cheap 'add-on' services

Price undercutting only works until a certain threshold is reached. The target gives up superprofits, and the instigator will want to make some money as well. There is money to be recouped as investing in telco infrastructure is hugely expensive. This is where Yu and Airtel lost the plot, they slit their own throats with an untested too cheap high volume model. A subscriber who is not covering your cost and giving something small on top is worthless and as a business you shouldn't chase after their custom.
It will be a duopoly, the relief to customers will only be slight.

To some extent yes but not entirely. I do not think Safaricom ( I may be wrong) is doing the same. Theirs is not about cost and something small on top. Check their Financials on Mpesa segment.