Payments firm Visa pushes for adoption of tap-to-pay transactions

Payment firm Visa is pushing for the adoption of tap-to-pay (contact-less) transactions in Kenya whose growth has remained stunted even with the preference for digital payments to reduce contact to curb spread of Covid-19.

Visa is tapping into the increased demand for mobile and card transactions to push contact-less technology which is a popular payment method in the developed markets, particularly in Europe.

“The use of contact-less cards has been low and protracted. The transactions we have seen are more on-test environment,” said Irene Auma, the Visa East Africa director of risk management.

According to Ms Auma, this has been due to fear associated with use of cards for making payments in the market, with many people concerned that fraudsters can infiltrate the payment systems to gain access to their bank accounts.

Visa’s partner banks including Standard Chartered #ticker:SCBK, KCB #ticker:KCB, ABSA #ticker:ABSA and Equity #ticker:EQTY among others have already rolled out the service to consumers and provided contact-less enabled Point of Sale machines to merchants.

The cards allow the consumer to tap rather than swipe or put in their cards to complete a transaction.

Visa said there will be no limits for the value of the transaction in Kenya, and similar to other card payment methods, the transactions are free of charge to the users.

In Kenya, cash remains the main form of payment. However, mobile banking has accelerated the growth of cashless transactions.

“We have seen an increasing demand among consumers and merchants to take advantage of the benefits of contact-less payments in light of the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We are working with our partners to ensure that our capabilities are made widely available and updated specifically to help meet today’s challenges,” said Corine Mbiaketcha, Country Manager for Visa in Kenya during the launch of the Maisha ni Kutap campaign in Kenya.