Visa card usage in Uganda is known for the elite and high-end people who normally use them to pay for a commodities in the hypermarkets, fuel for car, and pay for a drink at the bar and most of the times to pay for a hotel room.
However, most of the Ugandans who use bank facilities always look for an ATM machine to cash in to purchase commodities or clear their bills. The much usage of cash has almost led to the use of visa card to pay bills obsolete yet it is more convenient and safe than physically payment of bills.
Number indicate that 99% of bank customer prefer to use the ATM machine to cash in and pay or purchase commodities with physical cash compared to the 1% of those who use visa cards.
Coming to the common ground, due to the technological advancements in Uganda, most of the people use mobile money services to make transactions since it is much easier to access a mobile money agent next door to pay their bills.
So due to the much commanding power of the mobile money services to make transaction for the daily activities the commercial banks have now acted swiftly to find a way to integrate the visa system on the mobile phones so that it can compete with the mobile money services and also make the visa services more accessible.
Mr. Victor Ndlovu, the country director visa cemea, said on Monday at the launch of the centenary bank visa debit card, “We have Visa on mobile. It should be coming in the market within the next months. In fact one bank has already completed the process from a visa standpoint.”
