Visa acquires Fundamo

Pays $110m for South African for mobile banking specialist.

The move marks a deepening of Visa's commitment to mobile. Indeed, just this week the firm extended its partnership with Monitise to offer mobile banking services to US customers.

Fundamo has more than 50 active mobile financial services deployments across more than 40 countries, including 27 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Clearly, then, Visa has emerging markers in mind with this purchase. Indeed, Bill Gajda, Visa’s head of mobile banking, said: “These deals will add significantly to Visa’s ability to extend payment services to the underbanked around the world."

Fundamo could also help Visa accelerate its work on NFC, which it is already deeply committed to.

Last year, Fundamo signed an agreement with accells, a contactless network provider, to bring NFC retail payment readers, tags and other POS services to emerging markets.