Johannesburg: TECHz – News Desk
Visa is significantly broadening access to its Visa Pay ecosystem across multiple emerging markets in Africa and Central Asia.
By deploying a comprehensive software development kit (SDK), Visa aims to empower banks, mobile money operators, and fintech companies to seamlessly embed advanced payment capabilities directly into their existing mobile applications.
The SDK allows financial institutions to rapidly launch virtual cards and secure payment experiences for both banked and unbanked consumers. By providing integrated issuer processing capabilities and built-in customer experience tools, Visa is bypassing traditional infrastructure constraints that often slow digital transformation in these regions. The toolkit integrates tokenization readiness to securely encrypt sensitive payment data, maintains global Visa-certified security compliance out-of-the-box, and facilitates interoperability for money movement across participating banks, fintechs, and mobile networks.
The Visa Pay SDK is currently being adopted by a diverse range of issuers spanning over a dozen critical markets, including Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Comoros, Mauritius, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan. This rapid adoption supports a variety of digital payment use cases spanning e-commerce, person-to-person transactions, mobile money-linked virtual cards, humanitarian disbursements, and both domestic and cross-border remittances.
Financial leaders across the targeted regions are noting the strategic value of the SDK deployment for regional growth. Yousif Eltinay, Chief Executive Officer of United Capital Bank in Sudan, emphasized that digital payment solutions play a critical role in enhancing customer convenience, supporting business continuity, and promoting financial inclusion.
Gazza Motswagole, Commercial and Marketing Director for Orange Money in Botswana, added that the platform is expected to drive greater customer engagement and unlock new revenue opportunities over time. In Afghanistan, HesabPay Chairman Sanzar Kakar noted that the SDK has enabled them to scale quickly without relying on multiple third-party vendors as they prepare to launch up to one million Visa cards.
Visa plans to continue evolving the Visa Pay platform to further simplify everyday transactions. The company intends to introduce a Tap to Pay feature soon, which will enable consumers to make secure contactless payments by simply tapping their smartphones at compatible checkout terminals, completely bypassing the need for physical cards.
