Addis Ababa – Global payments giant Visa Inc. has entered into a strategic partnership with Ethiopian fintech firm SantimPay Financial Solutions S.A. to deploy 20,000 point-of-sale (POS) terminals across Ethiopia, a major step toward building out the nation’s underdeveloped digital payments infrastructure.
The agreement—inked during the Visa Connector Ethiopia summit last week—marks Visa’s first financial partnership program in East Africa and comes as the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) accelerates efforts to expand merchant acceptance, boost cashless transactions, and deepen financial inclusion across the country.
“This is a watershed moment for Ethiopia’s payments ecosystem,” said a regional executive at Visa, calling it a “foundational investment” in digital infrastructure.
Mass Deployment to Tackle Merchant Acceptance Gap
The rollout, managed by SantimPay, will see tens of thousands of low-cost, interoperable POS terminals installed in both urban and rural merchant locations. Ethiopia’s total active POS terminal count currently sits under 10,000, one of the lowest on the continent for a nation of over 120 million people.
With this agreement, Ethiopia is poised to more than triple its merchant acceptance footprint over the next 12 to 18 months.
“Our mission is to make digital payments accessible, affordable, and inclusive,” said SantimPay CEO, noting the partnership as a model of public-private alignment under NBE directives.
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