i2c teams with Visa in MENA regions
Card giants continue to forge alliances with fintechs in order to diversify away from traditional bank issuer models and interchange fee dependence. The fintechs cut down on their own infrastructure building cost and focus on other integration and payment products fabricated on other global payment rails.
This week, i2c, a California-based digital payments fintech, has announced a partnership with Visa in the Middle East and North Africa region. Under this partnership, i2c will serve as a fintech processor in the region. The fintechs in the particular region would be able to access Visa’s global payments network along with i2c’s issuing and processing platform.
This would be possible through the companies’ combined suite of “digital-first solutions and advanced payments technologies”.
The CEO of i2c, Amir Wain, noted that this agreement would allow for companies to “go to market quicker and to innovate across a broad range of products and features” which includes products and services such as virtual cards, debit, prepaid, credit, BNPL, cryptocurrency and loyalty programs.
Recently, i2c partnered with Solid to offer to issue processing solutions while it had also announced a string of other partnerships with Archa, CBTC and Credit Seasme for network expansion.
While Andrew Torre, Regional President, CEMEA, Visa noted this would be an “opportunity to further accelerate financial access and drive innovation in emerging markets”.
The press release noted that this partnership comes at a time when the growth in the region is “unprecedented” fintech growth with the potential of tapping an estimated 680 million unbanked persons and 60 million untapped merchants in CEMEA.
I2c globally provides configurable payments and banking solutions and lets its clients use its proprietary building block technology to create and manage solutions for credit, debit, prepaid and lending solutions.