Mobile network operator Airtel and payment services providerVerifone have announced a new partnership that will see the two companies worktogether to contactless m-payments to Ghana. According to the partnership,Verifone will provide NFC-enabled POS terminals to merchants across the WestAfrican country that will in turn allow Airtel’s 1.5 million customers to makemobile based contactless payments.
Commenting on the deal, Chris Jones, chief executive,Verifone Mobile Money said,
“We believe that NFC technology and the roll out ofcontactless ‘tap and pay’ across the African continent will help to realize thetrue economic benefits of cashless economies while driving mobile money adoptionthrough an improved merchant payments experience.”
While mobile money is widely popular theinfrastructure to enable contactless POS payments has been lacking as it is inmany countries around the world including the United States. But with this latestpartnership between Airtel and Verifone the infrastructure should improvesignificantly. As a result, it would not be surprising to see African consumersbecome the leading mobile money and payment users globally in the very nearfuture, well before consumers in Europe and the United States
Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, Global Payments Advisory Service
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