Mastercard To Use Facebook Messenger Bot To Help Small Businesses In Nigeria Go Digital

Launches Masterpass QR bot for Facebook Messenger to enable Nigerian businesses to set up digital money accounts and accept QR payments

Mastercard Office

Mastercard announced at Mobile World Congress, held in Barcelona, Spain. That it will use Facebook Messenger to provide technology to small businesses in Africa and Asia to drive affordable acceptance of electronic and mobile payments. Access to digital payments will help these businesses expand to new markets, and unlock financial services and products that enable them to grow their livelihoods.

The Messenger experience will launch in Nigeria, where Mastercard will pilot a new Masterpass QR bot to help business owner's move beyond cash transactions to accepting QR payments. Ecobank and Zenith Bank will support the first program. 

The pilot in Nigeria is the beginning of a larger plan by the two companies to include more businesses in the digital economy.

In line with our goal to serve 100 million Africans by the end of 2020, Ecobanks is delighted to collaborate with Facebook and Mastercard to enable undeserved and unbanked micro-merchants with the opportunity to open an Ecobank account almost immediately and begin to receive instant payments using Ecobank Masterpass QR on the Facebook Messenger platform. Micro-merchants in Nigeria are already benefiting from Masterpass QR and will soon be in 32 markets across Africa, enabling them to move away from cash. That is true economic empowerment, said Patrick Akinwuntan, Group Executive, Consumer Bank, Ecobank Group.

 Mr Peter Amangbo, MD/CEO of Zenith Bank Plc.  Said

Our bank is partnering with Facebook and Mastercard to introduce Masterpass QR as a means of driving financial inclusion and creating a new payment ecosystem for MSMEs and consumers, This initiative will help us encourage financial inclusion within the country, in line with the strategic thrust of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Buyers and sellers now meet and conclude transactions in-store, online and onsocial media, so we are ensuring payments can also be made on these platforms via QR coedes, wihtout having to log onto other solutions or even take a break from what you are doing of Facebook. 

According to research done by The Fletcher School and Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, of the $301 billion of funds flows from consumers to businesses in Nigeria, 98 per cent is still based on cash.

Jorn Lambert, executive vice president, Digital Channels and Regions, Mastercard said:

Every business owner is looking for ways to increase sales and draw new customers into their stores. By offering QR-based digital payments, smaller retailers can achieve these goals and create greater customer stickiness with little to no investment beyond the phone they already have

To get started, businesses can send a request to the bot to enable QR payments, receive approval from the bank, set up an account and start accepting digital payments in a fast, simple and secure manner. Once the account set-up process is complete, business owners can print and display the QR code in their stores or save the code on their phones. Customers can pay by associated with the QR code into their feature phone.

Brands and developers around the world are turning to message to connect with the 1.3 billion people who use Messenger each month, " said Kahina Van Dyke, director of Payments and Financial Services Partnerships at Facebook. "We are pleased that Mastercard is developing a service on the Messenger Platform to help small merchants use messaging to manage their business and connect with their customers."

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