Visa, the global leader in digital payments, recently inaugurated its first dedicated innovation center in Sub-Saharan Africa in Nairobi (SSA).
This facility will service Sub-Saharan Africa, and it will join Visa’s network of innovation centers, which have been operating since 2016, in places such as Dubai, Singapore, and San Francisco.
Visa’s commitment to supporting innovation and providing opportunities for clients and fintech partners to co-create market-relevant payment and commerce solutions across the region is bolstered by the new location.
The facility is aimed to build on the success of Visa’s flagship innovation center in San Francisco, One Market, by giving Visa’s partners access to tools that help them develop innovative solutions.
“Sub-Saharan Africa is a rapidly developing continent with a technologically advanced populace. Aida Diarra, Senior Vice President and Head of Visa in Sub-Saharan Africa, stated, “As we continue to promote digital payments usage in the region, our objective is to strengthen our collaboration with customers and partners in building solutions that are customized around the particular needs of Africa.” “As a technology-driven brand, Visa has pushed major technological developments that have made electronic payments what they are today.” “We are convinced that the innovation studio will build on that tradition and solidify Sub-Saharan Africa’s status as a pioneer in developing out-of-the-box solutions to address our region’s most critical concerns,” Diarra added.
Businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa have been pioneering the use of innovative technology to introduce new ways of paying and being paid.
The Innovation Studio will look into ways to expand the growth of emerging payment areas like Tap to Phone and Pay on Delivery, as well as the continued development of cutting-edge smarter payment solutions that use blockchain, the Internet of Things, Virtual Reality, and biometrics.
The studio will work with Visa clients and partners all around Africa to expand its service offerings.
The studio’s immersive environment will also equip customers and partners with tools to address some of their largest business difficulties while revealing new commercial avenues of potential, thanks to a human-centered approach.
Visa Confidential 2 is a sequel to Visa Confidential. Visa’s Innovation Centers have aided in the development and implementation of new business concepts and platforms all around the world.
Paga, which collaborated with Visa to co-create a platform that offers tools to small businesses, and Safaricom, which worked on a solution to enable 24 million M-PESA users to transact at Visa merchant locations and 150,000 M-PESA merchants to accept Visa card payments, are two companies from Sub-Saharan Africa that have already taken advantage of Visa’s innovation center capabilities.
At an event attended by leading banks, financial technology companies, and innovation specialists from across Sub-Saharan Africa, the studio was officially launched by Dr. Patrick Njoroge, Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya.
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