M-Pesa Secures Another Partnership With Visa, to Launch Debit Card For Millions of Customers

Africa’s most successful mobile money service, M-PESA, has once again partnered with payments giant Visa, as it launches physical debit cards for its millions of users.

With this card, M-PESA’s 60 million customers will be able to use it to pay across the eight countries in which M-PESA operates, significantly expanding M-Pesa’s reach and utility.

Also, it will enable M-PESA users to make payments on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, which will enable them to send money internationally and make cross-border payments.

Announcing the launch of its Physical card, M-PESA wrote on X,

“In line with our purpose of transforming lives, we are innovating our payment solutions to provide customers and businesses with more options and additional convenience. As part of this strategy, Safaricom has achieved PCI DSS compliance, which builds on our strategic partnership with Visa, expanding M-PESA’s payment capabilities to include card issuing and acquisition.

“PCI DSS compliance enables M-PESA to begin offering tap-to-pay card payments for the more than 60 million customers, 5 million businesses, and 100,000 developers across our entire ecosystem. This will empower them to receive mobile payments and online and in-person card payments from any customer across the world. M-PESA will also provide tourists with a solution that will enable any visitor to the eight M-PESA markets to pair their Visa card with M-PESA for seamless payments across almost 1 million businesses on the service. 

“FinTechs and financial institutions are equally set to leverage our card processing capabilities empowering them to provide end-to-end mobile and card payment solutions. Together with Visa, M-PESA currently offers virtual payment cards to our more than 60 million customers and 925,000 merchants across our markets”.

Safaricom’s latest announcement marks a significant extension of its partnership with Visa. It is however worth noting that this is not the first time that M-PESA and Visa have partnered to launch a card.

In 2022, M-PESA in partnership with Visa, launched GlobalPay Virtual VISA Card. The virtual card is linked to M-PESA user’s wallet and enables them to make payments to international online sites for goods and services.

But this virtual card could only be used online, rendering it inefficient at the country’s ubiquitous physical retail stores, 

Launched in March 2007, M-Pesa remains one of the most successful mobile money payment networks across the globe, with a user base of over 51 million. It is also arguably the most recognized fintech product across Africa through its multiple integrations, including partnership with financial firms to provide digital banking services, and other partners in promoting cashless transactions.