Visa Inc. will invest $1 billion in its business across Africa as the technology giant seeks to push adoption of digital payments across the continent.
(Bloomberg) — Visa Inc. will invest $1 billion in its business across Africa as the technology giant seeks to push adoption of digital payments across the continent.
The investment will be spread over five years, Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly said during the U.S-Africa Business Forum in Washington, DC, on Wednesday. The forum is taking place alongside the US-Africa Leaders Summit, which drew about 50 heads of state and senior government officials from African countries to address issues related to Covid-19, food security and the climate crisis.
“Visa has been investing in Africa for several decades to grow a truly local business, and today our commitment to the continent remains as firm and unwavering as ever,” Chief Executive Officer Al Kelly said in a statement.
For Visa, there’s a business imperative: Investors have grown increasingly worried about the firm’s growth prospects in developed markets like the US, where digital payments are already widely adopted. That’s why the firm has sought to increase its presence in emerging markets.
The company now has 10 offices across Africa after it recently established local operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Sudan. The company also opened an innovation studio in Nairobi, its first on the continent, earlier this year.
“Africa is an enormous opportunity for us — there are about 800 million people in Africa, about 500 million of them are yet to be banked,” President Ryan McInerney, who will take over as CEO next year, told investors last month. “As soon as the U.S. relaxed their sanctions, we opened an office in Sudan.”
Visa said the opportunity lies in the majority of Africa’s adult population who haven’t made or received digital payments yet, as well as the more than 40 million merchants there that don’t accept digital payments.
“Over the past year Visa has continued growing our investment in Africa,” Aida Diarra, senior vice president for Visa in Sub-Saharan Africa, said in the statement. “The investment pledge outlines our long-term commitment to Africa.”
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