Visa to offer debit cards to Millions of micro financial services users in Pakistan

Mobile Financial Service, JazzCash, which is a collaboration of Mobilink and Mobilink Microfinance Bank, has entered into a partnership with global payments technology company, Visa, to offer Visa debit cards to consumers.

This partnership, a first of its kind in the country with respect to changing times and global industry practices.   

This unique partnership will enable JazzCash to further strengthen its Mobile Financial Services ecosystem by leveraging on Visa-enabled merchant locations both locally and internationally.  This move also ensures that the country’s unbanked segment will not just have access to a bank account through their mobiles, but also to a globally accepted payment card.   

Speaking about the partnership, Aniqa Afzal Sandhu, VP Digital and Mobile Financial Services – Mobilink, stated,

“By linking our Mobile Account service with Visa, we are excited to embark on the next phase of our journey to digitalize our customer’s daily financial needs in a convenient and reliable manner. We look forward to further empowering our rapidly increasing Mobile Account customers with access to retail and online payments through Visa debit cards.”

Visa debit cards will bring more convenience and ease to JazzCash customers by enabling them to use their Mobile Account for various spending avenues.  

“Visa’s vision of being the best way to pay and be paid, for everyone, everywhere, is core to our business and consistent with the mission of achieving global financial inclusion. As a global payments technology company, we see one of the most valuable contributions we can make is helping to bring more people into the formal financial system,” said Kamil Khan, Country Manager, Pakistan and Afghanistan – Visa.

“We are delighted to partner with JazzCash to give its consumers access to funds in a convenient and secure manner. This new offering also reflects JazzCash’s commitment to bring its customers to the financial mainstream and find innovative ways to meet the evolving payment needs of growing customer base. Visa debit cards will allow JazzCash customers to pay for purchase of goods and services and will enable them to manage their daily spend effectively,” added Khan.  

By utilizing the Visa debit cards, JazzCash Mobile Account customers will be able to make purchases at more than 50,000 retail outlets in Pakistan, all online merchants where Visa cards are accepted and millions of merchants in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. This will not only act as an additional use case for the Mobile Account customers, but also allow JazzCash to introduce loyalty offers for its customers by building alliances with key merchants.