Visa has inaugurated its first African data centre in Johannesburg, a significant milestone aimed at reinforcing digital payments and fintech infrastructure across the continent.
Unveiled during the recent US presidential visit to Africa, this facility marks Visa’s second global data centre after Singapore. It enhances VisaNet’s capabilities by decreasing latency for African transactions, ensuring higher service reliability, and bolstering compliance with local data laws.
This data centre is part of a larger strategic commitment: Visa is channelling R1 billion (~$56.9 million) into African digital growth initiatives over the next five years, including fintech partnerships, infrastructure development, and capacity-building efforts.
“Africa is experiencing an explosion in digital payments, and our Johannesburg data centre is designed to meet that demand while aligning with local regulatory expectations,” said Visa CEO Ryan McInerney.
The data centre comes at a pivotal moment for South Africa’s fintech scene. Providers like Ozow, Stitch, and Yoco are driving growth in mobile banking, open APIs, and payment gateways. A local data hub means faster transaction settlements, better resilience, and more space for innovation.
This move also resonates with continental efforts to enhance cross-border payment efficiency. At the Inclusive FinTech Forum in Kigali, the Better Than Cash Alliance proposed large regional data centres to ease interoperability, while still enabling governments to access transactional data.
Across key markets —Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa — regulators are pushing for financial data to be stored within borders. Nigeria’s NITDA is increasingly enforcing this requirement.
Visa’s entry adds to a growing tech infrastructure ecosystem. Airtel Africa plans to launch a data centre in Kenya, while South Africa’s Teraco raised $680 million in 2023 to expand solar-powered data centre capacity amid crippling power outages.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s power challenges pose a key hurdle. To ensure uptime, operators rely on backup generators and solar setups — seen in Teraco’s efforts to go 50% renewable by 2027.
Visa’s strategy aligns with earlier collaborations: its agritech partnership with ThriveAgric in Kenya helped onboard 10,000 smallholder farmers, blending fintech with rural inclusion. It echoes other ecosystem-building moves, such as its five-year deal with Copia Global in Kenya.
