Mastercard and off-grid solar company M-Kopa announced on the 26 February at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that they will be piloting the use of Mastercard’s Masterpass Quick Response (QR) payment technology with M-Kopa’s systems in Uganda. The technology will allow M-Kopa customers to make payments by scanning a QR code using a smart phone or by entering a merchant ID associated with the code into a feature phone.
Masterpass QR will be a new payment channel for M-Kopa, allowing customers to pay for solar systems from their bank accounts – rather than mobile money wallets – using their mobile phones. “We’ve proven that the pay-as-you-go solar model works in East Africa, but the off-grid market in Africa is tremendous. Our partnership with Mastercard provides the roadway for more solar services and infrastructure across the continent,” M-Kopa cofounder and chief product officer Nick Hughes said. “QR technology holds great opportunity to extend the range of payment channels for customers and represents a step-change in our mutual goal to light up homes and businesses in Africa.”
M-Kopa and Mastercard will roll the payment system out across East Africa following the pilot. Mastercard intends to work with utilities to extend the payment system to water and gas in other developing markets. M-Kopa has provided solar systems to 3m people in East Africa to date.
