Xente launches Visa Business Cards

Xente, a Ugandan –founded financial technology platform that offers business payments solutions has announced its partnership with Visa, the global leader in digital payments as well as Eco Bank, Uganda.

The move will see Visa provide virtual and physical Visa business cards across businesses to enable them make payments to online and offline vendors, disburse money, and manage business expenses.

During the event, State Minister for ICT and National Guidance, Godfrey Kabyanga Baluku, hailed the company for its innovation that has seen over 500 companies’ partner with Xente.

“Xente thank you very much for this card and I think the more we use it the more shall we appreciate that Ugandans and Africans can be creative. Please engage more businesses so that in the next five years this Xente card can be among the most widely used around the world.” Kabyanga remarked.

“In some places in Europe now, not having a card raises questions about the holder’s civility because everybody is using a card. Even if the card is stolen it can be blocked so that the money cannot be stolen and this is good for Uganda. I would like to encourage all young Ugandans to go into various innovations because the ICT world is wide and open”, he added.

Xente’s founder and CEO, Allan Rwakatungu said the partnership is as a result of the complexities associated with managing a business and its money and therefore, the solution will help accounting teams manage the complexity in a one-stop platform which will in turn save companies a lot of money and countless person-hours.

Visa’s Vice President and General Manager for East Africa, Corine Mbiaketcha said,” this is the only way that we are going to mitigate the gap and ensure that we include financially our ecosystem, both from the consumer side but also from the business and corporate side.”

She further noted that Small and Medium-sized enterprises(SMEs) today represent about 90 percent of job creation in Africa and their impact in driving economic growth cannot be over emphasized in a country like Uganda with a GDP growth of 4.6 percent expected .

“SMEs are looking for self-service user experiences that make most of additional functionalities offered by digital innovations such as paper expense tracking and transaction control” Mbiaketcha noted.

The Xente Visa business card will provide versatility for online and offline purchases anywhere in the world and businesses will be able to better control, monitor and approve their spends in real time and the cards have the same security as any other Visa card.

Eco Bank’s Uganda Managing Director, Grace Muliisa pledged on behalf of the pan- African Bank to power the card with a Bank Identification Number to enable all payments securely and ensuring a seemless processing of transactions as they target to serve 2.5 million customers by 2025.