Why Africa’s first Visa studio in Nairobi is a game changer for Kenya

Nairobi has entrenched its position as a top destination for technological advancement in the financial sector. This follows the establishment of the first financial innovation Visa studio in Nairobi by top global payment solutions firm, Visa.

This studio will serve the African continent’s sub-Saharan region. It is part of a network of global innovation centres operated by Visa since 2016 in locations including San Francisco, Miami, London, Dubai and Singapore.

According to Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor Patrick Njoroge, the opening of this office adds to a series of collaborations that the CBK has been having with Visa.

Njoroge says that the CBK and Visa have been working to raise the quality of Kenya’s cyber security in conjunction with local banks and payment service providers to strengthen the digital finance infrastructure.

Apart from the collaboration between CBK and Visa, several Sub-Saharan Africa companies have already leveraged on Visa’s innovation centre capabilities.

These include Safaricom which runs a solution that enables 24 million M-PESA users to transact at Visa merchant locations, and 150,000 M-PESA merchants to accept Visa card payments.