Visa sees faster shift to digital payments across West Africa

Visa is seeing an accelerating shift from cash to digital payments across West Africa as consumers increasingly embrace card-based transactions, AI-powered commerce and seamless cross-border payment solutions, Andrew Uaboi, vice president and cluster head for West Africa said in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay’s Wasiu Alli. Excerpt:

The payments industry is going through what many are calling its most transformative decade. What does that feel like from where you sit, leading Visa’s operations across West Africa?

I think an honest way to describe it is that this transformation is no longer hypothetical, it is visible in the data and in the conversations I have every day. Every conversation I have, whether with a banking partner, a merchant, or a young entrepreneur, there is a shared awareness that the rules of commerce are genuinely changing. West Africa is not on the periphery of this transformation; in many ways, this region is actively shaping parts of it.

What makes this period so significant is the structural nature of the shift. We are watching people move away from cash in meaningful numbers. We are seeing digital adoption reach segments of the population that were previously untouched by formal financial services. The decline in cash’s share of everyday spend over the last five years has not been cyclical, but structural. 2026 is projected to be the first year in history where half of all consumer payments globally are made with card credentials. That is a defining milestone, and Nigeria and West Africa is a part of that story.

AI is reshaping industries in ways both visible and invisible. How specifically is it changing the way people pay and shop, and what should everyday consumers know about it?

Artificial Intelligence is making a shift that I find genuinely exciting. It is moving from being a backend tool to becoming a front-of-experience technology, and that transition has enormous implications for how people interact with payments. We are entering what the industry calls “agentic commerce,” a world where AI agents can make purchases on your behalf, guided entirely by the preferences and guardrails you have set for them.

Read also: Visa deploys AI tools as global payment disputes jump 35%

For consumers in Nigeria and across West Africa, this means that soon, transactions could be managed by intelligent assistants that know your preferences, protect your data, and ensure your money moves safely. Imagine giving an AI assistant a simple instruction: “book me the most affordable flight to London, within a set budget, and using only my preferred airline.” The agent finds the right option, authenticates the payment securely using tokenised credentials, and completes the transaction without you needing to re-enter a card number or navigate a checkout page. The consumer stays in control and friction disappears.

Visa’s role in all of this is foundational. We provide the infrastructure and the security layer that makes agentic commerce something people can trust. That is not a distant vision; the building blocks are already in place.

Security has always been central to how people think about payments. As technology advances on all sides, how does Visa continue to ensure that the digital payment experience remains something people can rely on completely?

It is a question we think about constantly, and our answer is best expressed not just in words but in the investments, we continue to make. As the threat landscape in digital payments evolves and so do our tools for addressing them. Visa deploys advanced AI-powered risk models that are continuously learning to identify suspicious patterns before a transaction is ever completed. Biometric authentication, whether fingerprint or facial recognition, is increasingly replacing older verification methods, making the experience both more secure and more convenient for the user.

What encourages me is the level of consumer engagement we are seeing. Our annual Stay Secure report found that 98% of consumers in our markets have already taken active steps to protect their digital payments. This is something we want to build on, because a secure payments ecosystem is a shared responsibility. Visa provides the infrastructure and the intelligence, but when banks, merchants, fintechs, and consumers all play their part, the result is a network that is remarkably resilient.

The message I would leave with any consumer is: digital payments, when done right, offer protections that cash simply cannot. And we are committed to making sure they are always done right.

Sending and receiving money across borders is something millions of people across this region do regularly. How close are we to that experience feeling as simple as a local transaction?

We are closer than most people realize, and the pace of progress over the last two to three years has been genuinely remarkable. Cost and delays around cross border payments feel disproportionate to what should be a straightforward movement of money. That is changing because of innovation happening at the infrastructure level.

One of the most significant developments is the role a stablecoin is beginning to play. These are digital tokens backed by fiat currencies, so they carry the stability of a dollar or a pound while moving with the speed of a digital token. For Sub-Saharan Africa, where remittances remain among the most expensive globally, stablecoin offers a faster, cheaper, and more reliable way to move money. Cross-border payouts in USD-backed tokens can reach recipients almost instantly, with significantly lower fees than traditional transfer methods.

For the Nigerian professional sending money home from abroad, or the business owner receiving payment from a client in Europe, this is not a distant promise. The infrastructure is being built right now.

Read also: FirstBank unveils multi-currency Visa card supporting naira, dollar, euro, pound

Consumer spending habits say a lot about how people’s lives are evolving. What are some of the most interesting shifts Visa has observed in how people are choosing to spend, particularly around lifestyle and personal experiences?

They are not just transactions; they are expressions of how people relate to the world and to each other. And what we are seeing is that people are spending with a stronger sense of intention.

There is a clear and growing appetite for experience-led spending. People are investing in travel, wellness, in meaningful moments with the people they care about, and increasingly, in themselves. Solo experiences, self-gifting, and curated lifestyle spending have grown in ways that reflect a genuine shift in how people define value. For premium customers living that reality, products like the Visa Affluent Cards are built to keep pace with them, offering privileges that align with how they choose to spend.

What this tells us about payments more broadly is that people want flexibility and seamlessness regardless of the occasion. Whether you are booking a trip, splitting a dinner bill with friends, or treating themselves to something personal, the payment experience should feel effortless. Visa’s network is designed precisely for that, so that the experience of living well is never interrupted by payment friction.

FirstBank and Zenith Bank recently launched the Visa Signature Card in collaboration with Visa. What is significant about these partnerships, and what does it signal about the direction of premium banking in Nigeria?

This collaboration means a great deal to us, and I think it signals something genuinely important about where Nigeria’s banking sector is heading. The Visa Signature Card is not simply a payment instrument. It is a lifestyle proposition designed for customers whose lives already span multiple markets, and whose needs go beyond a basic card and into the realm of global access.

We are talking about access to airport lounge worldwide, travel insurance and emergency assistance, concierge services, exclusive offers through platforms like the Visa Luxury Hotel Collection, extended warranty coverage, and online purchase protection. These are benefits designed to meet customers in a world that is increasingly borderless, whether for business, travel, or everyday transactions.

What both partnerships reflect is a shared conviction between our institutions: that Nigerian consumers deserve a premium banking experience that is competitive with anything available globally and that conviction is one we intend to extend. In the future, the Visa Affluent Card will be available through additional partner banks across Nigeria, reaching more customers who serve the same level of global access. Our role is to ensure that payment remains seamless and secure wherever our consumers are, by providing the infrastructure that connects them to global commerce.

There is a lot of conversation about financial inclusion across Africa. But Visa is also investing in the premium end of the market. How do you think about serving such a wide spectrum of people with very different needs?

These two are complementary. Financial inclusion is about ensuring that every person has a secure, dignified entry point into the economy. Premium banking is about ensuring that those who have reached a certain stage of their financial journey are not underserved either. Visa operates across that entire spectrum by design.

Our mission is to connect the world to a digital payment network that works for everyone. On one hand, it looks like enabling micro-transactions in communities where cash has historically been the only option. On the other hand, it looks like the Visa Signature Card, giving Nigerians access to global travel privileges they deserve. We have seen this play out in practice — from our work with fintechs to our partnerships with premium issuers like Zenith and First banks.

What ties both ends together is trust. Whether you are making your first digital payment or your ten-thousandth, the Visa network is designed to make you feel safe, valued, and connected. That consistency across social strata is something we take seriously.

The checkout experience is something most people rarely think about until it does not go smoothly. How is Visa working to make that moment, whether online or in-store, feel truly effortless?

The checkout moment is where everything either comes together or falls apart. It is the last few seconds of a consumer’s journey, and how that moment feels, has a direct impact on whether they complete the purchase and whether they come back.

The shift happening across the industry is a move away from manual, multi-step processes toward tokenised, biometric, and device-authenticated payments. Consumers are embracing this because it is faster, safer, and more secure. Visa continues to invest in reducing the steps between purchase and completion, because we know that seamless payments do not just benefit consumers; they drive real growth for merchants and for the broader economy.

The belief at the heart of this is: when payment works the way it should, people spend more confidently, businesses grow, and the economy improves. Every investment Visa makes in the checkout experience is ultimately an investment in that outcome.

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Looking at the next two to three years, what is the single biggest shift you believe will redefine how people in West Africa experience financial services?

It would be the convergence of personalisation and trust. We are entering an era where financial services will increasingly treat every customer as an individual, not a demographic, not a segment, but a person with specific needs, habits, and goals. The technology to achieve this now exists. Tokenisation, AI, biometric authentication, these are the building blocks of what some are calling the “segment of one.”

For West Africa, this is particularly meaningful. This is a region of extraordinary diversity, in income levels, in connectivity, in how people relate to financial institutions. The ability to deliver genuinely personalised financial experiences at scale could be transformative. A market trader anywhere in Nigeria and a professional travelling anywhere in the world can both be served by Visa’s network, but the products, the interface, and the experience can be meaningfully tailored for each of them.

The institutions that will win in this environment are those that move quickly, build on modern and agile infrastructure, and earn their customers’ trust consistently over time. Visa is committed to being the network that powers all of that.

On a personal note, you lead one of the most dynamic regional markets for one of the world’s most recognised brands. What genuinely excites you about this work right now?

It is the people. It is the young developer building a payments solution out of a co-working space in Lagos — the same entrepreneurial energy I see every time I engage with participants in the Visa Everywhere Initiative, where Nigerian startups continue to punch well above their weight on the global stage. It is the small business owner who just accepted her first digital payment and realised she can now sell to a customer anywhere in the world. It is the bank customer who holds the new Visa Signature Card and boards a plane knowing that wherever they land, they can pay & be paid.

Payments are often discussed in abstract, technical terms, infrastructure, settlement, tokenisation, and all that matters enormously. But underneath every transaction is a human being doing something meaningful: providing for their family, growing their business, treating themselves well, & celebrating a milestone. When I see Visa’s technology enabling those moments, that is what keeps this work deeply motivating.

West Africa is a region of enormous ambition and extraordinary talent. To be at the intersection of that energy and the future of global commerce, there is genuinely nowhere else I would rather be.