Visa gives Kenya’s Safaricom ‘missing link’ for global payments

A file photo of a customer holding Kenyan shillings while conducting an M-Pesa mobile money transfer at a Safaricom agent's stall in Nairobi, Kenya. Under the deal, the mobile phone-based M-Pesa will serve as a virtual card, allowing users to make payments abroad when they travel and also letting them transfer cash from their Visa-linked debit cards to their M-Pesa wallet even when they are abroad, the source said. — Reuters

NAIROBI: Visa and Safaricom have agreed a deal which will connect the Kenyan telecom operator's M-Pesa financial services platform with Visa's global network of merchants and cards.

Under the deal, which requires regulatory approval, announced on April 30 by both companies, M-Pesa's 24 million users and 173,000 local merchants will be linked to Visa's 61 million merchants and its more than three billion cards.