Visa gives Safaricom the ‘missing link’ for global payments

Visa and Safaricom have agreed a deal which will connect the Kenyan telecom operator’s M-Pesa financial services platform with Visa’s global network of merchants and cards.

Under the deal, which requires regulatory approval, announced on Thursday by both companies, M-Pesa’s 24 million users and 173,000 local merchants will be linked to Visa’s 61 million merchants and its more than three billion cards.