Paga has partnered with Visa to provide secure and convenient mobile payments solutions. The collaboration will enable Paga and Visa work closely in accelerating secure and convenient mobile payments for both merchants and consumers. The partnership will allow Paga account holders to transact on Visa’s global network. It will also see both companies work together on tech.
The collaboration reflects a strategy of the Visa tech company to expand in Africa. Visa’s partnership with Paga doesn’t include investment in the startup, but it is expected to drive larger payment volumes for both companies.
“We want to digitize cash, that’s a strategic priority for us. We want to expand merchant access to payment acceptance and we want to drive financial inclusion,” said Otto Williams, Visa’s Head of Strategic Partnerships, Fintech and Ventures for Africa.
From the collaboration, Paga will gain new merchant options.
“Based on the partnership we’re going to launch QR codes and NFC [payments] into the market in Nigeria — alternative ways of receiving payments than bringing out a physical card,” said Oviosu. These new options are expected to roll-out these in Nigeria sometime in second-quarter 2020.
The Visa-Paga partnership will become Africa’s best funded startup sector —— with thousands of ventures vying to scale digital-finance products to the continent’s unbanked and underbanked consumers and SMEs. Although the global financial services company has entered into collaborations with several other African fintech ventures, such as B2B payments company Flutterwave and South African startup Yoco, which is focused on enterprise payments services and hardware for SMEs. And also, with Interswitch in 2019.
Announcing the partnership in an official statement, Paga said, “Partnering with Visa is one step further in our global expansion plans. Now, all Paga account holders will have access to Visa credentials (physical and virtual cards) tied to their Paga accounts and thus the ability to transact anywhere in the world Visa is accepted. Together, we are also working to launch a number of innovative merchant acceptance solutions which range from QR codes and NFC for in-store merchant payments, online payments, and international remittances all processed through Visa’s network.”
