Mastercard demos new payment tech in Nairobi, eyes $1.5 trillion African digital economy
Mastercard launched new payment tech, like Merchant Cloud, at its Nairobi summit, targeting Africa's $1.5 trillion digital economy...
✨ Key Highlights
Mastercard held its first “Africa Edge” summit in Nairobi, demonstrating new payment technologies and outlining plans to tap into Africa's projected $1.5 trillion digital economy by 2030. The summit addressed key challenges including expanding low-cost payment acceptance for small businesses, improving interoperability, and enhancing security.
- Mastercard launched Merchant Cloud, a unified backend platform for businesses, and demonstrated Agent Pay, a first-of-its-kind transaction in the EEMEA region.
- Division president for Africa, Mark Elliott, reiterated Mastercard's "long-term commitment" to the continent.
- The event emphasized the critical need for immediate-day settlement for small businesses and discussed connecting Africa's dominant mobile money ecosystems, such as M-PESA, to global payment rails.
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The Equity Group Foundation (EGF) and iamtheCODE have partnered to train 600,000 young people across Africa in artificial intelligence (AI), coding, and other digital skills. A recent study by Zoho, which surveyed 360 Kenyan business professionals, aligns with this, revealing that Kenya is a leader in youth-driven, privacy-conscious AI adoption. In a related development, Mastercard held its first “Africa Edge” summit in Nairobi, where it demonstrated new payment technologies. At the summit, Mastercard outlined plans to tap into Africa's projected $1.5 trillion digital economy by 2030. The company also addressed challenges like expanding low-cost payment acceptance for small businesses and improving interoperability.
