Mastercard partners Airtel, Standard Chartered on PayOnline

The trio of Airtel Africa, Standard Chartered and MasterCard has launched a virtual card on mobile phone.

The tripartite partnership, ITRealms Online gathers signals alignment by e-commerce players in the face of expected mobile commerce growth in the country, mostly in introduction of Airtel Money, otherwise known as PayOnline.

This service is a mobile wallet linked to Airtel’s mobile commerce offering ‘Airtel money’ which was recently launched in Kenya, with a plan to make it available across the continent of Africa.

A press statement made available to ITRealms Online showed that the groundbreaking mobile commerce product ‘PayOnline’ would give consumers across the continent greater financial inclusivity in the global e-commerce sector.

Registered Airtel customers, officials said, would be able to make online purchases from any site where MasterCard is accepted.

They explained that the single use shopping card would be initially available in Kenya for purchases made from non-Kenyan websites.

The second phase of the programme, ITRealms Online gathered, would see the rollout of the online product across Airtel markets.

The tripartite partnership signals the growing realizations by players in the e-commerce sector of the expected growth in mobile payments and contactless card payments in the next decade.

Whereas Airtel’s consumer penetration in Africa backed by the financial structuring and regulatory framework expertise by Standard Chartered Bank combined with the global acceptance of MasterCard, the partnership is expected to provide the consumer with a compelling product that is fast, secure and convenient.

“The one-time basis of the product has provided the consumer with a simple but secure payment process bereft of complex reconciliation and integration processes associated with other online transactions,” part of the statement read.

The simplified online transaction, they said, would follow the process; Airtel Customers would be able to request a one-time virtual card number with the amount of purchase. Airtel money services platform would generate a special 16 digit number that enables the completion of the transaction.

On completion of the transaction, a confirmation message would be sent to the consumer’s handset.

Remmy Nweke

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