I&M Bank, UnionPay and iVeri partnership increases Chinese online card payment acceptance across East Africa Region

I&M Bank, UnionPay and iVeri partnership increases Chinese online card payment acceptance across East Africa Region

Nairobi, 4th, November, 2019: UnionPay International and East African financial services firm I&M Bank have recently announced a partnership, which provides online payments access to UnionPay cardholders across Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. This new service has been facilitated by iVeri Payment Technologies direct integration to UnionPay Online Payment (UPOP). iVeri will also now make this integration available to its card acquiring customer base across Africa.

The move will bring increased convenience to UnionPay cardholders transacting in Kenya and across Africa, through I&M Bank’s network of E-Commerce merchants.

UnionPay cardholders are now able to securely transact online, in the tourism and hospitality industry across the entire East Africa Region.

This collaboration between the three partners will further ensure smooth online payments between China and Africa, offering stronger support for China-Africa trade and personnel exchanges.

Mr. Luping Zhang, UnionPay International Africa Branch General Manager, sees the completion of this project as “another milestone in Union Pay’s expansion in East Africa”. He further states that “in addition to the constant improvement of our acceptance network and local card issuance, UnionPay International is also collaborating extensively with local institutions across the continent”.

Commenting on the partnership, Kihara Maina, CEO, I&M Bank Limited noted, “We are pleased to enter into this agreement with UnionPay International and iVeri as it allows the three partners to draw strengths from each other, to cater for the fast growing e-commerce industry in the region. The partnership aligns with the Bank’s business model premised on innovation, where we seek to deliver market driven solutions that meet our customers’ requirements, which are increasingly becoming technologically driven.”

“This partnership I believe will help give our merchants who accept UnionPay cards the freedom of modern banking whose future is digital.” Kihara Maina added.

The I&M Bank E-Commerce platform known as I&M WebPay is an online payment service, that allows merchants to accept online payments through credit and debit cards on their websites in both Kenya Shillings and US dollars.

iVeri has acquiring banks in 19 African and Middle Eastern countries that use its gateway to provide their merchants with multi-channel card acceptance. This integration with UnionPay will enable iVeri to enhance the acceptance offering and provide further value to its customers.

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About I&M Bank Limited I&M Bank is a leading commercial bank headquartered in Kenya, with a growing regional presence currently extending to Mauritius, Tanzania and Rwanda. The Bank is a publicly listed Kenyan-based regional commercial bank offering a full range of Corporate, Business, Premium Client and Personal banking services.

I&M Bank is wholly owned by I&M Holdings PLC which is listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. CDC Group PLC owns approximately 10.68% of I&M Holdings PLC. I&M prides itself on its strong values and key strengths of innovative service and strong customer relationships and through these pillars, I&M Bank aspires to be the banking powerhouse in East Africa for middle to large and premium clients through provision of innovative and market driven banking solutions for its target segments.

For more information visit www.imbank.com.

About UnionPay International

In partnership with more than 2000 institutions worldwide, UnionPay International has enabled card acceptance in 174 countries and regions with issuance in 55 countries and regions. To date, more than 7.5 billion UnionPay cards are issued in 55 countries and regions, among which over 120 million are issued outside mainland China.

UnionPay International provides high quality, cost effective and secure cross-border payment services to the world’s largest cardholder base and ensures convenient local services to a growing number of global UnionPay cardholders and merchants adopting UnionPay payment services.

For more information visit www.unionpayintl.com/en

About iVeri Payment Technologies

iVeri provides payment acceptance technology and integrations to 11 banks operating in 19 countries in Africa, the Indian Ocean Islands and the Middle East. Over 50 million transactions pass through iVeri annually. Most importantly, iVeri links customers to over 41 international and domestic transactional platforms.

iVeri Payments Technologies leverages over two decades of payment technology experience to provide card accepting banks with technology, products and integrations that assist them to build their Acquiring business.

For more information visit www.iveri.com.