Safaricom and Visa sign M-Pesa partnership

Safaricom, Kenya’s largest mobile operator and Visa, the global leader in digital payments have today announced a partnership that will enable the development of products that will support digital payments for M-PESA customers.

Under the deal, which requires regulatory approval, announced on Thursday by both companies, The partnership will cover over 24 million M-PESA customers, more than 173,000 Lipa Na M-PESA merchants from Safaricom and more than 61 million merchant locations throughout Visa’s global network, and over 3.4 billion Visa cards in more than 200 countries and territories.

With this joint effort, Visa and Safaricom will seek to eliminate barriers to global commerce and offer an expanded set of mobile e-commerce capabilities to merchants and consumers by enabling secure and convenient cashless payment solutions.

This, experts say, has been the missing link to integrate M-Pesa into the global payments system.

This Partnership with VISA,will help safaricom in exploring products that will support both its customers and Lipa Na M-PESA merchants. The partnership will play an important role in delivering even more value to customers, linking them to more opportunities especially in global e-commerce.

Cashless payments continue to grow in popularity driven by increased globalization and digitization further creating demand for more innovative services.

Visa  continues its commitment to creating new and improved payment experiences for consumers and businesses everywhere, helping drive progress and unlock incredible new opportunities for all.

Safaricom and M-PESA have already transformed millions of everyday lives throughout Africa and put Kenya on the map as a global leader in mobile money.

M-Pesa is the largest payments platform on the African continent with 40 million active users. It claims to process more than one billion transactions every month.

The service allows users to deposit money into an account stored on their mobile, to send balances using PIN-secured SMS text messages to other users, including sellers of goods and services, and to redeem deposits for regular money.

The firm is currently operational in Kenya, Tanzania, Lesotho, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Mozambique and Egypt

Vodacom and Safaricom completed the acquisition of M-Pesa from Vodafone at the beginning of the month.

Read Also; Visa and Pesapal Partner for Connected Payments in Africa