Visa to team up with several Kenyan banks to strengthen foothold in the market

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Global payment service provider Visa has teamed up with top five Kenyan banks such as Co-Operative Bank, Family Bank, Kenya Commercial Bank and NIC Bank to introduce mobile payment platform in Kenyan market to gear up competition which is majorly dominated by M-Pesa owned by telecom operator Safaricom. Visa has introduced a new feature into the payment system that facilitates payment acceptance even when consumer and merchants have accounts with different banks or mobile operators. It would support P2M as well as P2P payments.

Currently Kenya mobile payment segment is dominated by Safaricom’s M-Pesa which has a user base of 22 million that accounts for 70% of total adult population in the country. Monthly transactions of M-Pesa are USD 150 million. Mobile subscriptions in Kenya is 40 million and Safaricom owns approximately two third of the subscription base. Therefore it enjoys significant monopoly in the market. mVisa is entering into this market with a unique offering that eliminates need for POS terminals as e-payments are channelized through QR code scan. Moreover it comes in with software developer kits (SDKs) which allow access to Visa APIs for building additional solutions according to local needs.

Kenya is a dynamic market in terms of mobile payment with very few players which makes it ideal for business expansion. Visa plans to extend electronic payments services to additional 500 million people worldwide by 2020. This initiative is anticipated to contribute significantly to the cause.

To know more and gain deeper understanding of mobile payment industry in Kenya, click here.