Visa Inc (NYSE: V), one of the world’s payment moguls, recently announced the execution of a partnership between it and Safaricom, the most dominant telecom service in East Africa. Safaricom, the founder of mobile banking known as MPesa, recently released a virtual card which will allow millions of its consumers to effect digital payments on a digital forum. The partnership also stands to affect Visa’s dominancy in the continent.
The release of the project identified as MPesa GlobalPay allows the Visa digital card after the two organisations formed the partnership in 2020. The partnership was to design products and services that benefited online payments. However, the collaboration was delayed due to the effects of the COVID- 19 pandemic and the travel restrictions.
Details of the partnership
The digital card will allow at least 30 million MPesa consumers to remit cashless payments via Visa’s global connection of merchants. The consumers can opt to operate the digital card via the MPesa platform or a USSD. In the previous era, the platform’s consumers could attempt to obtain mobile payments through an MPesa connection comprising 400,000 brokers and agents, among others.
Corine Mbiaketcha, Visa’s East Africa vice president, stated that the telecom platform altered how funds transfers are carried out in Kenya. Mbiaketcha further said that Visa was thrilled to collaborate with reputable African Countries and consumers surpass the difficulties presented by the global trade. Visa also intends to build international payment opportunities for other respected countries in the continent and on the worldwide market.
How MPesa has impacted Kenya
During the announcement, Visa stated it was excited to collaborate with Safaricom when the shift was moving to digital payments. Both companies create a new direction for domestic charges by fusing Safaricom’s clientele base with Visa’s global connections. Safaricom launched the MPesa platform sometime in March 2007 and has dominated the mobile money payment sectors across the globe.
The MPesa possesses a consumer base of 51 million consumers, with 30 million in Kenya and has become the most known Fintech product in Africa. The dominance became possible due to various integrations such as financial institutions offering virtual banking products and other collaborations to effect cashless transactions.
