Visa has partnered with credit infrastructure provider _able and pan-African payments firm Onafriq to broaden access to credit across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) through its Flex Credential product, the companies announced on Thursday.

The deal will allow financial institutions in the region to activate credit experiences alongside existing prepaid and debit credentials using a single card. This is poised to turn millions of payment cards in the market into potential credit vehicles without requiring issuance of new cards.

Visa Flex Credential, the U.S. payments giant enables issuers to offer consumers multiple funding options through one card credential. 

For banks across the target region, where debit and prepaid card adoption has grown significantly but formal credit products remain limited, this new partnership offers a lower-cost pathway to expanding lending portfolios.

The agreement brings together Visa's global payments network, _able's credit enablement infrastructure and Onafriq's payment processing capabilities.

Under the collaboration, Onafriq will support processing for eligible prepaid card implementations and connect participating institutions to its pan-African payments infrastructure.

Financial inclusion

The deal comes as financial inclusion advocates push for alternative credit scoring models in markets where traditional bureau data remains sparse. By leveraging existing customer relationships and transaction histories, issuers may be able to extend credit to consumers who would otherwise be excluded from formal lending channels.

"For _able, Visa Flex Credential extends the capabilities available through its platform, complementing existing deployments across banking and mobile money channels," the company said in a statement. The Dubai-headquartered firm, which maintains operational hubs in Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Pune, provides infrastructure for banks, mobile money operators and fintechs to deploy credit, savings and cards across emerging markets.

Across many African markets, the gap between card ownership and credit access remains high. While millions of consumers hold bank-issued cards, most lack access to revolving credit facilities. 

Visa Flex Credential is designed to bridge that divide by allowing financial institutions to offer credit alongside existing debit and prepaid products through a single credential.

"This collaboration is intended to help financial institutions activate credit experiences alongside existing prepaid and debit credentials," the companies said in the release.

For issuers, the partnership consolidates multiple technology layers into a unified framework. _able's platform supports portfolio performance management, risk assessment, liquidity optimisation and customer growth initiatives, while Onafriq enables card processing and payments delivery functionalities across its network, which claims access to approximately one billion mobile wallets and 500 million bank accounts.

Jad Abbas, co-founder and CFO of _able, termed the partnership as a response to a structural market failure. "Most consumers across this region already hold a card, and very few can access credit through it," Abbas said. "Visa Flex Credential turns that gap into a channel, and _able provides the infrastructure to activate it responsibly and at scale."

Competition

The partnership comes as payment companies and fintechs compete to capture Africa's underserved credit market. Traditional banks have been slow to extend unsecured lending to lower-income consumers, creating openings for alternative lenders and mobile money operators.

Visa's strategy involves partnering with local infrastructure providers rather than building direct-to-consumer offerings. Godfrey Sullivan, Visa's senior vice president and head of products and solutions for CEMEA, said the collaboration is part of a broader push to help issuers "explore new ways to broaden access to financial services and meet the evolving needs of consumers across the region."

Christian Bwakira, Onafriq's group chief commercial officer, highlighted the relevance of credit access in volatile economic conditions. 

"Supporting Visa Flex on prepaid, powered by our proprietary companion card platform and integrated to _able, extends that reach to a new category of credit access, one that gives everyday consumers more confidence to spend, even in markets where economic conditions shift quickly."

Financial institutions across the CEMEA region can now explore implementing Visa Flex Credential on existing card portfolios through _able's platform, which is designed to operate across multiple processing environments. The companies did not disclose specific financial terms of the partnership or target deployment timelines.

The collaboration signals continued interest from global payment networks in Africa's underbanked populations, even as macroeconomic headwinds, including currency volatility and inflationary pressures, weigh on consumer spending across key markets.

[email protected]