Visa International Plans to Establish Regional Office in Kenya

Visa Inc. (V), the world’s biggest electronic payments network, will open an office in Kenya in June.

The office will be responsible for operations in all East African nations as well as English-speaking countries in sub- Saharan Africa, it said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

“Kenya presents an opportunity for Visa to grow its existing electronic payments business,” it said. “Visa also sees an opportunity to broaden our existing range of products and services as well as to address specific market needs.”

There are 2.96 million Visa-branded cards in the Kenyan market. Transaction volumes climbed 24 percent to $4.1 billion in 2010 compared with a year earlier, it said.

The company plans to grow the number of point-of-sale terminals in Kenya threefold over the next three years, Gerald Hawkins, group general manager for Africa, said April 12 in an interview in Nairobi, the capital. Kenya currently has 9,000 terminals and 22 partner banks, Hawkins said.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/visa-international-plans-to-establish-regional-office-in-kenya.html