Visa & Paga Partners to Drive Larger Payment Volumes for Both Companies

Visa has partnered with Paga to drive larger payment volumes for their companies.

Paga is a Nigeria-based fintech company that helps customers transfer money, pay bills and make purchases online. Paga has over 24000 agents who attend to over 14 million customers in West Africa. Its partnership with Visa allows customers to transact on Visa’s global network.

Visa will also expand its network in Africa through partnering with yet another startup. In 2019, it partnered with Flutterwave, Yoco, and acquired a minority stake in Interswitch. In a conversation with Tech Crunch, the Head of Strategic Partnerships, Fintech and Ventures for Africa, Otto Williams said that the company wants to digitize payment in Africa. It wants to expand merchant access to payment acceptance and drive financial inclusion in the continent.

Tayo Oviosu the CEO of Paga revealed the terms of the partnership. He said they would launch QR codes and NFC payments, an alternative to paying without using a physical card, into the Nigerian market. Both parties are already working to roll-out these new options by the second quarter of 2020.

Paga is also focusing on emerging markets and targeting expansion in Ethiopia and Mexico. Paga acquired Apposit, an Ethiopian software development company, to enter into East Africa. It equally opened an office in Mexico and plans to launch its payment products soon. This expansion is in line with its vision of becoming a global payments business.