Ecobank Brings mVisa Access to Swath of Africa

Mobile payments systems are growing worldwide, and in developing countries, the growth sometimes seems even more rapid than in developed countries and mature markets. Now, Ecobank’s throwing in on mobile growth in the region by bringing Ecobank Scan+Pay to its customer base, which will also give those users access to mVisa operations thanks to a relevant partnership with Visa.

With this, users not only get a new mobile payments system set up, but also a cross-border interoperability. That’s great for a place where countries are as close to hand as states—similar to that which is seen in Europe—and can use something that can readily cross national border lines.

Consumers get the ability to not only pay merchants directly, but can also use peer-to-peer functionality to pay friends and neighbors, a form of mobile payments user increasingly popular in the United States. Just ask Venmo’s pile of users. Thanks to the mVisa capability, Scan+Pay offers up a complete, instant, and best of all secure mobile payments service that can work just by scanning a quick response (QR) code, or even by entering a merchant’s unique identification code.

This works to speed up the flow of digital commerce and get money into merchants’ hands more rapidly, which is a welcome development for anyone selling things in the region. It’s also a great way to circumvent some of the problems that some merchants were having in terms of point-of-sale (PoS) systems. Better yet, it’s also good news for those Africans who are working in countries separate from their families, as they now have a readily available way to send cash back home.

It’s good news all around, certainly; merchants get a way to get paid faster, regular users get a quick way to pay a merchant or each other, and the whole process can carry on over several different borders. That makes it a welcome addition to both every merchant and every end user’s lineup of mobile payment options, giving everyone the tools they need to operate effectively wherever they happen to be.

New options mean new potential commerce, and with tools like these on hand, there’s nothing to stop Africans from improving their situation just about anywhere they are.