Airtel Africa teams up with Mastercard

Airtel Africa on Tuesday announced a partnership with Mastercard, and said the move will provide its over 100 million mobile phone users across 14 African countries access to Mastercard's global network.

"The Mastercard virtual (non-plastic) card allows Airtel Money customers, even those without a bank account, to make payments to local and global online merchants that accept Mastercard cards, while ensuring that the customer's financial data is always secure and private," a company statement said.

With this, Airtel Money users, even those without a bank account, can make online payments globally with their Airtel Money Mastercard virtual card.

Also, Airtel Money customers will be able to make in-person payments at outlets via Quick Response (QR) codes, whereby payments are made from an Airtel mobile phone by scanning the QR code displayed at checkout or by entering a merchant identifier, at any location globally that Mastercard QR is accepted.

"To date, there are over 1 million merchant locations across Africa that accept Mastercard QR payments," the statement added.

Airtel Money customers will also benefit from competitive pricing and preferential exchange rates for international payments, and gain access to other domestically relevant use cases, including bill payments, merchants payments and value added services such as cash management solutions, it added.