Corporate News
By DAVID HERBLING
In Summary
- Vodafone, which owns a 40 per cent stake in Safaricom, has partnered with Visa to develop the chip-and-pin cards.
- The card links customers’ mobile wallets to the plastic card, allowing for ‘tap-and-go’ payments, which steps up the telcos’ battle with commercial banks for control of retail payments.
British telecommunications firm Vodafone, which is Safaricom’s
largest shareholder, has rolled out a prepaid card linked to M-Pesa in
South Africa, indicating also that a similar launch could happen in
Kenya.
The newly unveiled M-Pesa card links customers’ mobile
wallets to the plastic card, allowing for ‘tap-and-go’ payments, which
steps up the telcos’ battle with commercial banks for control of retail
payments.
Vodafone, which owns a 40 per cent stake in Safaricom, has partnered with Visa to develop the chip-and-pin cards.
Gemalto, a Netherlands-based card maker, provided
the security solution for the M-Pesa card to ensure it is acceptable at
payment terminals across the globe.
“By expanding our M-Pesa mobile wallet offering
with the banking card, we’ve (added) an entirely new level of
functionality,” said Herman Singh, managing executive of m-commerce at
Vodacom.
“It gives users the freedom to make payments for goods and services without the need to carry cash.”
The Visa-branded M-Pesa prepaid card comes at a
time when Safaricom has embarked on enlisting merchants to accept M-Pesa
payments as a strategy to tap into the lucrative retail payments.
The ‘tap-and-go’ M-Pesa-linked cards could help
Safaricom to cut reliance on peer-to-peer mobile transfers, which is
high volume but low profit margin.
“This innovative deployment highlights just how
quickly the worlds of banking, retail and mobile communications are
changing,” said Thierry Mesnard, senior vice president for Africa at
Gemalto.
Betty Mwangi, Safaricom general manager in charge
of financial services, said the model is likely to be replicated locally
but added that the South African market varies from Kenya’s.
“The model in South Africa is different because it
is a card-based payments economy,” she said in a telephone interview.
“We’ll likely introduce it in Kenya but it won’t exactly be like what it
is in South Africa.”
However, Ms Mwangi declined to give further details.
Vodafone said users can pick their cards at any of its 8,000 agents in South Africa
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