Airtel Africa today announced its agreement with VeriFone Mobile Money to offer VeriFone Mobile Money’s merchant enablement applications for mobile Tap n Pay in 17 African countries.
VeriFone Mobile Money’s Tap n Pay applications allow customers to pay, buy, bank, bill and remit money with their mobile phone at the point of sale.
Recently, Juniper Research said the number of consumers making contactless payments via their mobile handsets would reach 300 million globally by 2017 against over 110 million in 2013.
The report said these rollouts were being accompanied by marked increases in contactless POS (Point of Sale) terminals, with leading vendors VeriFone and Ingenico both now shipping the majority of their terminals with NFC (Near Field Communications) as standard.
Chidi Okpala, director & head of Airtel Money – Africa, said: “Using their Airtel Money Wallet with VeriFone’s contactless / NFC point of sale terminals our customers will have a more convenient, fast and secure way to make multiple payment transactions utilizing Tap n Pay.”
VeriFone Mobile Money CEO Chris Jones says over 42 million people in Africa according to the GSMA are actively using mobile money services and there are more than 520,000 registered mobile money agents across the continent. The company is considering Africa as a top market for mobile money because only 22 percent of Africans hold a bank account or credit facility.
As part of the mobile money deal, VeriFone Mobile Money will deploy Retail Enablement applications integrated to VeriFone’s payment devices across the group, enabling the deployment of Mobile POS (mPOS), POS and Biometrics for International Remittance to Airtel Money customers.
