VISA bridging fast, secured gaps in digital payment solution in Nigeria—Afiegbe
The Country Director of leading digital payment solution, Visa West Africa, Mr. Emezino Afiegbe has given explanations on why more West Africans and Nigerians in particular are settling with VISA as their chosen payment solution.
In an interview, he said “In our recent research, we discovered that the millennials want things done faster than usual and they want to operate in a secure environment”.
“So today’s digital pay solutions, which VISA offers, are tailored to meet those needs of faster in secured operational environment”.
Business Hilights recalls that VISA is a global payment technology company that has been in operation in the past 60 years.
Afiegbe noted that the company understands the needs of the millennials in today’s digital world, and added that “the digital solutions we provide actually fit into their lifestyles and the solutions are equally helping them in maintaining the values of their lifestyles”.
“So, working with our financial institution partners, we are enabling mobile phones with solutions that will make the millennials work faster and connect faster with ease. So we have several mobile payment solutions that fit the lifestyle of millennials.
On how the dearth in payment infrastructure, as currently being experienced in Nigeria, could hinder digital pay, he said “In the global digital payment system, infrastructure has always been a source of concern, especially in emerging markets, which Nigeria belongs to”.
“We have infrastructure like point of sales (PoS) terminals that are not working well because of network connectivity issues.
He observed that “From our findings, we discovered that there is a culture issue as to why some of the payment terminals are not functioning well. Some merchants, who are supposed to use the payment terminals, also lack understanding of the basic principles of the payment terminals and as such they easily dump them at the slightest difficulties experienced during financial transactions.
“Again, the cash culture embedded in most merchants will always make them prefer dealing with cash. Some are also afraid of the security issues around digital payment channels. We need to educate people to create awareness because digital payment is a global thing and must be adopted fast in Nigeria.
“We need to educate the banks that deploy the digital pay machines; we need to educate the merchants that make use of the machines and the telecommunications operators that provide the connectivity backbone on which digital payment channels ride. We also need simple payment solutions to drive digital pay, and that is exactly what Visa is providing,” Afiegbe said.
