Visa set to take aim at M-Sacco in apps race

A mobile point-of-sale payment solution for low-value transactions that accepts all Visa, MasterCards and AMEX cards. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By JAMES KARIUKI
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Summary

• The new digital product is the brainchild of Visa and Kuscco.

The dominance of M-Sacco — Kenya’s mobile banking app for savings and co-operative societies — will come under pressure after global tech payments platform Visa announced plans to launch a
similar payments product.

The new digital product, now at the concept stage, is the brainchild of Visa and the sacco umbrella federation, Kenya Union of Savings and Credit Co-operatives (Kuscco).

Speaking on the sidelines of the 2019 World Credit Union (Woccu) Conference, Visa head of community accounts Douglas Leighton confirmed the digital app development at its Dubai-based Innovation Center.

“While we are developing the business case, we are also working on some logistics around licensing and ultimately, we shall bring the product to life via a digital app,” he said.

The Visa boss made the disclosure a month after representatives of the sacco movement in Kenya — Fortune, Universal Traders and Siraji — accompanied the Kuscco officials in a visit to Visa Dubai labs last June where they mapped out the digital app’s development strategy.

Woccu and Visa said while Kenya had made major strides in enhancing financial inclusion for saccos as well as small and medium enterprises, there was a need to provide a digital solution that was easy to use and affordable to both saccos and members.

“Though technology has expanded access to finance dramatically, there are still gaps in the market. We at Woccu are working with partners to fill these gaps.

“We want business to come in and create useful services for credit unions (saccos),” said Woccu vice president of financial inclusion Megan O’Donnell.

Ms O’Donnell said the new platform would enable saccos carry out business on ‘own’ platform, saving on expenses made to access other platforms.

The development comes days after Kenya’s sacco mobile apps specialist CoreTec announced plans to soon launch its integrated multipurpose platform for the sacco fraternity that facilitates payments for goods and services at service stations, merchant stores among others.

In mid-2017, the Kuscco launched a pay-per-use facility enabling small- and medium-sized saccos access to a mobile app and website banking platform via its subsidiary IRNET Kenya (ICK) in which it owns a 75 percent stake while the rest is owned by Woccu.

The cloud-based computing system is accessible from any Internet-enabled device that enables sacco members to access financial services from the saccos enrolled on the platform.