Visa: improving access to digital payments in Africa

American multinational finance company - Visa - partners with leading fintech organisation MFS Africa to bridge the digital payments gap in the Africa region.

The mobile money ecosystem is rapidly growing in the African region MFS Africa and Visa have joined forces to bridge the gap between this ecosystem and the world of online digital payment. Currently in Africa mobile money wallets are widespread within the region, however without a virtual and/or physical network credential associated with them international online services are unavailable to users.

How is Visa and MFS Africa solving this problem?

To solve this, MFS Africa - the region’s largest digital payments hub that connects 180mn mobile wallets through one API - will allow its platform users to generate instant Virtual Visa card. In addition, MFS Africa will integrate Visa’s real-time push payments solution into its platform to provide a fast, convenient and secure way to send and receive money and remittance.

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African payment landscape in figures:

• By 2020, remittance to Sub-Saharan Africa is set to increase by over 5.6%, reaching US$51bn.

• It cost an average of 9.3% to send money to the African region - the most expensive in the world. 

“Africa is adopting a mobile-led, digital payments ecosystem and with Visa looking to accelerate the distribution of payment credentials and expand the acceptance space for digital payments, this partnership is an important one,” said Jack Forestell, Executive Vice President, Chief Product Officer, Visa. “MFS Africa will help us enable digital payment use cases at scale through their aggregation model.”

Who is MFS Africa?

Founded in 2010, MFS Africa strives to develop and distribute scailable financial solutions to underserved markets in Africa.

The organisation connects mobile money systems and financial institutes to provide tailored, accessible, affordable and inclusive alternatives to money transfers, micro-lending, micro-insurance, micro-savings and payments.

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