Vodacom Financial Services has announced a technology partnership with Alipay, a platform for digital lifestyle services, to provide South African consumers and merchants with inclusive mobile solutions through innovative digital technologies
Vodacom Financial Services will work closely with Alipay to leverage its global learning and develop a super-app that will not only offer digital customer experience but also bring to life a marketplace of goods and services tailored to the needs of South African customers underpinned by a progressive digital payment ecosystem designed to serve both banked and unbanked parts of the population.
Shameel Joosub, Vodacom Group CEO, said, “This partnership represents an important milestone in promoting greater financial inclusion within the communities in which we operate, accelerating our aspirations for financial services across Africa.
“We already offer an ecosystem of innovative digital financial services products to South African customers, but this technology partnership with Alipay will allow us to be faster and more efficiently on par with leading global digital counterparts. We see this as an excellent opportunity for us to reinvent South Africa’s mobile fintech ecosystem for both consumers and merchants and we look forward to working with Alipay to achieve this.”
Mariam Cassim, CEO of Vodacom Financial and Digital Services, said, “Globally we have witnessed an increase in industrial convergence. Companies that invest in technology enabling them to better understand their customer behaviour and thus offer their customers personalised financial, business and lifestyle solutions are the ones that excel in this space.
“Through our partnership with Alipay, we look forward to applying digital technologies to facilitate merchant and consumer transactions from a digital wallet on their mobile device.”
Vodacom Financial Services will soon embark on a drive to recruit and develop the best skills required to bring this application to life early next year.
