Safaricom has entered an agreement with Visa to form M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa Virtual card which will see the mobile phone-based money transfer service transact in 200 countries.
This will allow customers to transact up to Sh150,000 ($1,283.70) per payment and Sh300,000 ($2,567.39) per day.
“By partnering with Visa to provide the M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa virtual card, we are looking to bridge the gap for our customers who would like to use M-Pesa anywhere across the world,” Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said.
According to Business Daily, the two firms are also targeting to launch the M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa Virtual Card Tanzania, Congo DR, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Ghana.
This new deal will make it possible for Visa to fulfill its goal of penetrating the African market. Visa is a digital payment service firm for customers, businesses, banks, as well as the government.
“Visa is committed to expanding the payments ecosystem across Africa by opening up the global marketplace for every single consumer. This partnership with Safaricom is an important step in helping to achieve this,” Vice President of Visa and GM for East Africa, Corine Mbiaketcha, said.
The two firms said the service will be exclusive to online payments outside the country to protect customers from incurring forex conversion costs on local online payments billed in Kenya Shillings, according to Business Daily.
The M-Pesa platform brings a lot of money for Safaricom. The firm made Sh82.56-billion ($706.2-million), which is a slight drop from what it made in 2020. In 2020, M-Pesa brought in Sh84.43-billion ($772.2-million).
Customers will activate their M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa Virtual card by selecting M-PESA GlobalPay, under the “Pay” or “Grow” option. They can also activate it by dialling *334# then selecting option 6 for “Lipa Na M-PESA” followed by “M-PESA GlobalPay”.
By Zintle Nkohla
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