Visa and Bantu Announces New Partnership
Innovation is finally getting hold of Africa’s economic and financial space despite inadequate and unreliable infrastructure challenges. International fintech and leading digital payment service, Visa, has announced its partnership with the Bantu Blockchain Foundation.
Visa pointed out that the collaboration aims to connect its digital asset-linked Visa cards to Bantu Token Network (XBN), Bantu’s official token, to facilitate effective transactions on the blockchain. In addition, the partnership will also reduce the inefficiencies of online payments in Africa.
Encouraging Financial Inclusion in Africa
Visa also added that a significant Pan-African bank and top Visa banking identification number (BIN) sponsor is backing up the project, thereby creating opportunities to enhance economic development in Africa. Countries that would directly benefit from this initiative include Zambia, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, DR Congo, Rwanda and six other countries.
Another strong view of this partnership is that all transactions using XBN on the Bantu blockchain will be fast and cheap. In addition, Visa will issue virtual cards in conjunction with a BIN sponsor bank and BantuPay wallet enabler to help merchants easily convert digital assets to fiats. Hence, registered BantuPay users can access Visa cards with XBN tokens.
Victor Akoma-Philips, chief operating officer at Bantu, addressed the partnership, saying, “At Bantu, we believe that the right technology tools and collaborations applied to the right problem will create large-scale positive social impact. This collaboration with Visa will help create a new Web3 social impact framework.”
Furthermore, Bantu plans to support human development in Africa by airdropping $1 billion worth of its XBN token during the next five years. This plan will improve financial education, startups and career development opportunities. The blockchain protocol would leverage Web3, decentralised applications, and other blockchain-based innovations at African universities, historically black colleges, Latin America, and United States universities to achieve this goal.
Head of social impact at Visa for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Carl Manlan, said, “Visa believes that greater financial knowledge can empower people to manage their money better and improve their quality of life. We are delighted to partner with Bantu to help young people learn the fundamentals of personal finance, including budgeting, saving and responsible spending.”
To aid this course, Visa and Bantu are teaming up to create a program, Practical Money Skills, that would educate at least 100,000 young people quarterly on managing money effectively. Moreover, Bantu is teaming up with Visa’s Fast Track Program to deliver new commercial experiences on Visa’s payments network. Therefore, Bantu will be the first African blockchain infrastructure to join this strategic collaboration.
How This Partnership Can Drive the Adoption of Crypto in Africa and What to Expect in the Future
Africa has the highest population of young people that have access to smart devices and the internet. Moreover, with the growth of digital innovations in financial services, the world market is slowly adopting virtual transactions.
In 2020, about 281 million people were involved in e-commerce, which is likely to increase due to the advancement of cryptocurrency, and the partnership between Visa and Bantu is currently paving the way to improve efficiency in the online commerce sector.
According to reports, Africa gained $105.6bn worth of cryptocurrencies for June 2021, driven by peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions in key growth markets. And countries like Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania are responsible for the rapid adoption of crypto. Therefore, the foundation is available for this partnership to thrive and benefit millions of young Africans in the future.
