M-Pesa is an African payment solution that has done awfully well on an international stage. The service is spreading its wings a little further, partnering with credit giant Visa for something a little more… global.

Visa and M-Pesa have come together to create a new virtual bank card. That’s not really a novelty — loads of banks offer one now. This one, called the M-Pesa Global Pay Visa Virtual card, will facilitate payments to retailers all around the world.

Making M-Pesa matter more

The idea behind the virtual card is…. well, capitalism. It’ll give users access to more than 100 million foreign retailers (so, anyone outside of Africa) via a phone. Users can use their devices to purchase goods from overseas, paying for them without needing a bank account — an actual problem in Africa.

That doesn’t mean that users will go bonkers, ordering all manner of impulsive items from Amazon at no notice. Transactions are capped at 150,000 Kenyan shillings, which is about R20,000. Which is more than enough for a terrible financial decision, we suppose. Still, it’ll be a whole new market opting to make those terrible money choices. Which is what capitalism is all about.

The virtual card, unfortunately, isn’t slated for South Africa just yet. It’s launching first in M-Pesa’s home country, Kenya, where some 30 million users have access to it. It’ll turn up in Mozambique, Congo, Lesotho, and Ghana by April 2023. South Africa doesn’t appear to be in line for the initial rollout. But then, this country seems to have a (mostly) functional banking system and we don’t need it quite yet.

Source: Reuters