MFS Africa, a digital payments hub, and Visa, are linking mobile money wallets in Africa to Visa’s online digital payments platform, in a move expected to open up commerce to the region.
MFS Africa and Visa will help SMEs to generate an instant Visa virtual card with a 16-digit number and link it to their mobile money accounts to use for remittances and ecommerce transactions.
According to Dare Okoudjou, founder and CEO, MFS Africa, “We have found in Visa an invaluable partner to support us in the next stage of our expansion. The reach of the Visa network is unparalleled, and we look forward to working with Visa to realise our vision of a world in which no one is limited in what they can achieve when it comes to payments.”
MFS Africa connecting through one API more than 180 million mobile wallets on the continent – will distribute Visa payment credentials across multiple markets in Africa.
MFS Africa will also integrate Visa’s real-time push payments solution Visa Direct, to provide mobile money users on the MFS Africa platform a fast, convenient and secure way to send and receive money and remittances directly from/into their mobile money wallets via eligible card credentials.
According to the World Bank, remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa are set to increase by over 5.6% between 2019 and 2020, reaching $51 billion. However, the region is still the most expensive in the world to send money to, with an average cost of 9.3 percent.
“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.”
