On 7^th July 2022, KEPSA CEO Ms. Carole Kariuki hosted Ms. Eva Ngigi-Sarwari – Visa CEMEA Senior Business Leader, Country Lead Kenya together with Ms. Phyllis Kamau – VISA CEMEA Director, Government Engagement-East Africa.

VISA CEMEA is a KEPSA Platinum member and the purpose of today’s meeting was to introduce the leadership of VISA to KEPSA as well as to discuss possible areas of mutual collaboration.

Ms. Sarwari mentioned that VISA is keen on deepening and engaging through KEPSA’s public-private dialogue (PPD) platform to participate in the dialogue shaping policy as well as in round tables with regulatory bodies such as the Central bank. Ms. Sarwari also shared that Visa has launched an innovation studio in Nairobi but serving the region as well.

Ms. Kariuki briefed the team from VISA on the Mkenya Daima Initiative which is a non-partisan multi-stakeholder platform whose primary purpose is to inspire Kenyans towards peaceful elections and prosperity thereafter. She further mentioned that KEPSA has made great strides in upscaling SMEs with several initiatives implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic such as the training and mentorship programs, E-commerce Booster Program amongst other initiatives.

It was agreed that KEPSA and VISA will look into working together to collaborate in various fields such as supporting at least 2600 SMEs who participated in the KEPSA E-commerce Booster Program with fast, secure and reliable electronic payments payment solutions as they aspire to trade online, mutual agreed participation in the innovation studio by KEPSA SMEs as well as continued and active participation in KEPSA’s PPD platforms.

VISA is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. VISA operates one of the world’s most advanced processing networks — VisaNet — that is capable of handling more than 56,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants.

VISA is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. VISA’s innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, pay ahead of time with prepaid or pay later with credit products.