We recently noted in our article(Mobile Money Services to team up with Banks) after Equity Bank account holders had been synchronized with M-pesa phone network in Kenya. Now the same is happening in Uganda with United Bank for Africa (UBA) partnering with MTN Mobile Money.

UBA has partnered with MTN Mobile Money and other banks should be in advanced stages of coming up with similar solutions. A UBA Customer can access their account and be able to transact with the help of their mobile phone to pay off service providers, pay utility bills and so on.

However, if they want hard cash, they will still have to go over the counter to a branch or an authorized agent and withdraw physically.

The East African Common Market protocal has kicked off today and analysts say mergers, acquisitions and better services are expected in the banking sector with the opened up markets which come with stiff competition.

Problem is; the population of Ugandan's with bank accounts is about 3m out of the entire population of about 31 Million people. This is the time when the EAC Common Market should be embraced because it will not be a question of looking at the 30Million people from Uganda but this time round, Investors and Business people will be looking at a population for the entire East African Bloc which will be 120-130Mn people.