Google's tactical retreat from the payments market continues apace with the closure of Bebapay, a pre-paid card for contactless transit fares in Kenya that was launched in 2013 with the support of Equity Bank.
In a notice to its 100,000 cardholders in Nairobi, the search giant said it will discontinue the service in March.
Explaining the exit to Africa's Business Daily, a Google spokesperson said the firm was shifting focus from the payments space.
“We are consolidating projects to focus on less within the payments space,” Dorothy Ooko, Google’s communications and public affairs manager for East and Francophone Africa, told the paper.
The retreat from Kenya comes just 10 months after Google canned a similar card that had been deployed at De La Salle University in Manila.
The shut down of Bebapay follows Google's announcement in November that it was pulling out of the in-app purchasing game by retiring its Google Wallet service for digital goods.