Instant digital payments are booming, but they’ve created a massive new playground for fraudsters. This is a huge problem for financial inclusion, as the people who need these new systems most are often the most vulnerable. If users don’t trust a platform, they won’t use it.
To tackle this, payments giant Visa is teaming up with the Mojaloop Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the open-source software for building interoperable payment systems. The plan is to directly integrate Visa’s advanced anti-fraud tools into the core Mojaloop platform, giving central banks and financial providers a powerful new weapon to secure their networks.
The collaboration, announced today, is aimed squarely at building confidence and resilience in the digital financial ecosystems across Africa and other emerging markets.
How It Works: Plugging in Visa’s Brain
First, a quick refresher: Mojaloop isn’t an app you download. It’s free, open-source backend software that acts like a universal translator for money. It’s designed to connect different financial services—like banks, mobile money operators (think M-Pesa), and fintech apps—so they can all “talk” to each other seamlessly. The goal is to make sending money, especially for underserved communities, as cheap and easy as sending a text message.
The problem? Connecting everything in an open network also creates new pathways for fraud. That’s where Visa comes in.
As part of the partnership, Visa will offer its Account-to-Account (A2A) Protect solution as an integrated service on Mojaloop. This isn’t just a simple firewall; it’s a sophisticated security and risk management layer that uses AI to safeguard real-time bank account payments.
Visa claims to have invested $12 billion into fraud prevention over the last five years, building AI platforms that use real-time risk scoring and behavioral analytics to spot bad actors. The company says these efforts already help block $40 billion in attempted fraud globally each year. By plugging A2A Protect into Mojaloop, that “brain” can now be used to analyze transactions and stop fraud before it happens on these new open-loop networks.
More Than Just Software
This partnership goes beyond a simple API call. Visa will also be actively involved in the Mojaloop community. This includes:
- Direct Engagement: Visa will participate in “Mojaloop convenings,” which are high-level meetings with the central banks and national hub operators who are actively implementing or considering using the platform.
- Training and Support: The collaboration involves product training, knowledge sharing, and joint market development to help countries build out their systems securely.
- Industry-Wide Push: Both organizations will also work together on industry events and research to promote best practices for digital payments.
“This collaboration marks a significant step forward in our mission to make digital payments safer and more inclusive for everyone,” said Joanne Kubba, Visa’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the CEMEA region. “By combining Visa’s advanced fraud prevention technology with Mojaloop’s open-source platform, we are helping build trust and resilience in instant payment systems globally.”
For Mojaloop, this addresses a major concern they hear from potential adopters. “Prospective adopters of the Mojaloop platform have consistently cited fraud risk as a key concern,” explained Paula M. Hunter, Executive Director of the Mojaloop Foundation.
Hunter was quick to point out that this move gives users choice. Visa is being added as a service provider “alongside other partners.” This means the Foundation is working on integrations with multiple fraud prevention solutions, allowing countries and hub operators to pick the option that best fits their specific needs, rather than being locked into a single vendor.
