Safaricom has partnered with visa to unveil the first M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa Virtual Card. The card will enable Kenyans to shop globally and make secure payments to over 100 million merchants in over 200 countries through the Visa Global Network.
The M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa Virtual Card will be exclusive for international, online payments outside the country, and will protect customers from incurring forex conversion costs on local online payments billed in Kenya Shillings. Kenyans can use the service to make payments on global apps and shopping websites for entertainment, retail, business, and even when traveling abroad.
The transactions will be subject to the current M-Pesa limits which allo a maximum of Sh150,000 per transaction and Sh300,000 per day at the prevailing forex rates.
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When a customer uses the card, they will receive an SMS notification with the current exchange rate for the transaction value.
“By partnering with Visa to provide the M-Pesa GlobalPay Visa virtual card, we are looking to bridge the gap for our customers who would like to use M-Pesa anywhere across the world,” said Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom.
To ensure security on the system, users will be able to generate a unique CVV for a 30 minute period. Customer will be required to key in their PIN any time they generate a CVV. This ensures that card details to perform a transaction are only known to the user.
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The two companies are charting a new path for digital payments by leveraging Visa’s vast global network and Safaricom’s local know-how and large subscriber base.
“We remain optimistic that this partnership will go a long way in opening the global e-commerce market to Kenya’s significant unbanked and underbanked population,” said Corine Mbiaketcha, vice president and general manager for East Africa at Visa.
The virtual card will be rolled out gradually to other M-Pesa markets including Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Lesotho and Ghana through the M-Pesa Super App.
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