Visa opens its first Innovation Studio in Africa in Nairobi in bid to advance payment solutions

Visa has launched its first dedicated innovation site in Sub-Saharan Africa with the opening of the Innovation Studio in Nairobi. The facility, the digital payments platform says, will serve the African region and joins a network of innovation centres operated by Visa since 2016 in Dubai, San Francisco and Singapore.

The facility was officially opened by the Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya, Dr. Patrick Njoroge, at an event attended by leading banks, financial technology companies and innovation specialists from across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The company says the new facility shows their commitment to promoting innovation and creating opportunities for clients and fintech partners to co-create market relevant payment commence solutions throughout the region.

The facility is designed to replicate the success of Visa’s flagship innovation center, One Market in San Francisco and provide Visa’s partners with access to tools that strengthen their capabilities in developing new solutions.

Businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa have been leading the way in introducing new methods of paying, and being paid, by harnessing innovative technologies. Ideas to expand the growth of emerging payment areas such as Tap to Phone and Pay on Delivery will be explored at the Innovation Studio alongside the ongoing development of cutting-edge smarter payment solutions that leverage blockchain, Internet of Things, Virtual Reality and biometrics.

The studio will help Visa clients and partners from across the continent extend their service offerings. Through a human-centred approach, the studio’s immersive environment will also provide clients and partners with tools overcome some of their biggest business challenges while uncovering new commercial avenues of opportunity

Visa’s Innovation Centers have been instrumental in the conceptualization and implementation of new business ideas and platforms around the globe. Several Sub-Saharan Africa companies have already leveraged Visa’s innovation centre capabilities, these include Paga ; who collaborated with Visa to co-create a platform that offers tools to small businesses; and Safaricom on a solution to enable 24 million M-PESA users to transact at Visa merchant locations, and 150,000 M-PESA merchants to accept Visa card payments.

What they said:

“Sub-Saharan Africa is a fast-growing region with a tech-savvy population. As we continue to grow digital payments adoption in the region, our aspiration is to deepen our collaboration with clients and partners in developing solutions that are designed around the unique needs of Africa,” said Aida Diarra, Senior Vice President & Head of Visa in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“As a brand built on technology, Visa has driven the major technology advancements that make electronic payments what they are today. We are confident that the innovation studio will continue that legacy and cement Sub-Saharan Africa’s position as a leader in creating out of the box solutions to deal with our most pressing challenges as a region,” added Diarra.