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Mastercard and Flowcart will embed secure card payments inside WhatsApp chats, starting in Kenya, then expanding across East Africa and more markets.
Mastercard is teaming up with Flowcart to embed secure card payments directly into social commerce chats. Social commerce is buying and selling through social apps like WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, or chat widgets, instead of a traditional online store.
The partners say the service will first launch in Kenya. After that, it will scale across East Africa and into other high-growth markets, including South Africa, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire.
The product is designed to let a customer discover an item, place an order, and pay, all in the same chat thread. That matters because many WhatsApp sellers today still rely on external payment links, bank transfers, or switching to a separate website, which can lead to drop-offs before payment is completed.
On the technical side, the service will use embedded links, QR codes, or native checkout flows connected to Mastercard’s payment network. It also supports tokenization, which replaces real card details with a protected digital token, like using a masked substitute card number. This can make repeat purchases easier without re-entering full card details.
East Africa is a mobile-first market where many small businesses sell through WhatsApp, not storefront websites. If card payments can happen inside the chat, sellers may see higher conversion rates and fewer abandoned orders.
For SMEs and creators, “in-chat” checkout can also reduce the need to build and maintain a full e-commerce site or app. For Mastercard, it is another path to grow card acceptance in informal and underserved commerce segments where conversations already drive sales.
Primary Source: mastercard.com
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