By Adedapo Adesanya
Visa, in collaboration with payment service, Pesapal, have announced a strategic partnership to drive connected digital payments to consumers and businesses in Africa.
With the partnership, Pesapal will become the global digital payment systems’ Principal Member driving small business acquiring and issuing.
Pesapal has created Africa’s only payments ecosystem that offers – eCommerce, Point of Sale, and Consumer applications on one platform.
It also recruits and supports businesses to be able to digitize payment collection securely while integrating to business internal systems such as POS, ERP, Accounting, and Billing systems. By integrating businesses, Pesapal is then able to drive consumer payments to the merchants on the same platform.
Speaking on the partnership, Mr Mark Mwongela, Founder and CEO at Pesapal said – “We are excited to partner with Visa and to become a Visa Principal Member. Small businesses form a big part of our economy and with Visa’s support, we will be able to support more businesses and offer more to consumers.”
Since its inception in 2011, Pesapal has been driving a connected payment experience for merchants and consumers. Previously, digital payments were only available to large businesses. Pesapal has changed this with Sabi – a mobile point of sale solution that enables small businesses to accept card payments securely.
“Over the last 9 years, we have benefited greatly from Visa’s expertise and platforms for payments processing and fraud management.” Mr Mwongela added.
On the part of Visa, Mrs Corine Mbiaketcha, Vice President and General Manager for Visa in East Africa said the strategic partnership will drive financial illusion across the continent.
“This partnership reinforces Visa’s commitment to expanding payment acceptance across Africa to drive the much-desired financial inclusion in our Communities.
“We are very excited to work with Pesapal and leverage our combined assets to broaden our offering to a larger number of merchants and consumers especially as governments and communities are increasingly focused on cashless and remote payments,” she said.