A look at Visa's and Mastercard's efforts to stay relevant in Africa, including by funding local startups, as users switch to digital wallets and QR codes
Damilare Dosunmu / Rest of World :
Context & Ripple Effects
Visa had already sought distribution through local financial rails: its partnership with Safaricom linked Visa’s network to M-Pesa’s services in East Africa. Earlier mobile-money interoperability between Vodafone and MTN also established that network access—not only card issuance—could shape payment reach.
The startup-funding strategy sits against a less certain capital backdrop: later coverage reported Mastercard’s withdrawal of a planned 54 Collective investment, underscoring how dependent ecosystem-building efforts can be on sustained commitments.
First-order effects
- Visa and Mastercard must compete for transaction relevance at the wallet and QR-payment layer, rather than relying solely on consumers using card-branded payment instruments.
- Local startups receiving their support gain a potential route to the networks’ capital, technical integration, and distribution relationships.
Second-order effects
- Wallet operators, QR-payment providers, and fintechs gain bargaining power as the card networks seek integrations and partnerships that preserve their role in local payment flows.
- The networks’ existing local alliances, including Visa’s M-Pesa connection, become more strategically important because they can provide access to customers and merchants already using alternative rails.
Third-order effects
- If wallets and QR payments continue to become the primary payment interface, global card networks may increasingly operate as embedded infrastructure partners to locally controlled consumer platforms.
- Competition in African payments could shift from card acceptance toward control of interoperability, merchant access, and the rules governing programmable settlement.
The trend: Global payment networks are adapting to markets where local wallets and mobile-money platforms increasingly control the customer relationship.