Financial services company Visa is upbeat about its prospects in Kenya, says the firm’s new general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Kamran Siddiqi, who is touring Kenya, said the East African country is an important market to the company.
He added that he is positive about progress made, especially with regard to driving financial inclusion and enabling electronic payments.
Visa, which specialises particularly in the likes of card payments, competes in Kenya against the country’s dominant electronic payment tool: M-Pesa.
Kenya’s mobile money transfer subscriptions number 23.2 million, according to the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK).
“With taking great strides towards the digital migration, innovative products are being rolled out right now through global technology such as ‘Visa Personal Payments’ to enable the diaspora to send money home to Kenya more cheaply and safely,” said Siddiqi.
He added that the company wanted to make partner banks and the local government aware of its services and update them on their progress.
He said Visa remained a key catalyst for Kenya’s economic growth and prosperity.
Siddiqi further added that Visa plans to establish an important initiative that could support the government’s mandate of migrating all cards from magnetic stripes to chip-and-pin by end of March 2014.
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