Global payments giant Visa is doubling down on contactless payments across Africa as part of a broader strategy to expand its relevance in markets where traditional card usage is still limited.
“We think contactless payment is going to grow [in Africa] just as we’ve seen it grow everywhere around the world,” Godfrey Sullivan, Visa’s SVP and Head of Products, Solutions, and Digital Partnerships for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA), told on the sidelines of GITEX Africa 2025. “It is going to become how people pay face-to-face.”
Visa’s bet signals a critical phase in its Africa playbook, where it is investing in newer, faster payment infrastructure to compete with homegrown systems. It sees an untapped opportunity in Africa, where cash remains dominant despite the rise of mobile money and real-time payment platforms like the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement Systems (NIBSS). The company believes contactless payments—via cards, mobile phones, and biometrics—can offer a faster and more scalable solution.
“In Morocco, we introduced contactless payments a couple of years ago. Now 41% of transactions conducted are contactless,” Sullivan said. “It’s a far more secure way for consumers and businesses to receive payments.”
The payments giant prioritises this model across its key African markets—Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, and Morocco—where adoption of digital payments has accelerated but remains fragmented across QR-based solutions, real-time payment systems, and local fintech platforms. These systems have struggled with reliability and fraud, according to Sullivan.
“In Nigeria, people are going to supermarkets and waiting for transactions to clear for minutes,” he said. “Visa transactions clear in 200 milliseconds.”
Sullivan also noted that many local real-time platforms lack effective dispute resolution mechanisms, a weakness Visa sees as a strategic advantage. “Many of them are reaching out to us, saying, “How can we have better security?””
The strategic pivot
For Visa, the contactless shift is not just about enabling tap-to-pay at physical merchants. The firm is working to embed its infrastructure more deeply into Africa’s growing digital payment ecosystem. It is rolling out Visa Pay, a new real-time B2B payment platform in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sullivan said the platform is currently undergoing regulatory approvals. Visa is also exploring the integration of stablecoins into its broader payment ecosystem.
Visa’s approach in Africa hinges heavily on partnerships with local fintechs and banks to navigate the fragmented regulatory and infrastructure landscape. The firm now works with over 1,000 issuers across the continent. “You need to have partners in each of these different countries… the fintech community, particularly, is central to our broader strategy,” Sullivan said.
In December 2024, the payments giant invested in Moniepoint, the Nigerian fintech unicorn known for its dominant agent banking infrastructure in Nigeria. Moniepoint processed over 5.2 billion transactions in 2024 and serves over 1.6 million businesses. Its deep roots in the informal economy give Visa a channel to scale contactless offerings in everyday commerce.
Visa is trying to strike a delicate balance: expand fast in Africa without alienating fintechs increasingly wary of high fees and dependence on foreign networks. Sullivan’s message was clear: Visa doesn’t just want to be a card company in Africa, it wants to be the rails, working with everyone from banks to fintechs to modernise how payments move.
Business outlook
With the rising cost of relying on international card networks like Visa and Mastercard after a naira devaluation, Nigerian fintechs are increasingly turning to local alternatives such as Verve and AfriGo. OPay and Moniepoint have collectively issued more than 17 million Verve cards. In March 2025, PalmPay and Moniepoint partnered with AfriGo to roll out contactless payment cards and tap-to-pay solutions across Nigeria.
But Visa says growth in the region hasn’t slowed. “We still see Visa growing tremendously across the continent. The rate of growth is only getting faster,” Sullivan said.
The company plans to invest $1 billion in Africa by 2027, and says it’s on track. With nine offices and over 500 employees, Sullivan said, “Africa is a super important region for us—and we’re just getting started.”
