Visa Accept Adds Phone-Based Card Terminals But Leaves Rollout Gaps
Visa is expanding Visa Accept and Visa Direct so small businesses can take card payments and send payouts from smartphones. Market-by-market rollout dates, pricing or all participating banks remain outside the public record.
Visa Accept Turns Phones Into Card Terminals
Visa is expanding smartphone-based payment tools for small businesses through Visa Accept and Visa Direct, with a company-led announcement aimed at merchants in emerging markets.
Visa Accept lets a seller use a smartphone and banking app to take card payments without a separate card terminal.
Buyers can pay by tap or payment link, and Visa said funds can reach the seller's account in near real time, subject to the platform's conditions.
Visa said the product is already available in more than 25 countries.
Visa named HNB in Sri Lanka, Banco Agromercantil de Guatemala, SACOMBANK and VPBank in Vietnam as live banking partners.
It also named Co-op Bank in Kenya, Access Bank, Omni Bank and Universal Merchant Bank in Ghana as banks expected to launch in the coming weeks.
Visa Cites SMB Finance Tool Adoption
Visa linked the update to its Global SMB Macro Trends Report.
The company said 99% of surveyed small and medium-sized businesses use at least one digital finance tool, and 85% said at least one such tool had helped their business.
The same company material said about 530 million of the world's 1.3 billion unbanked adults already use smartphones.
Visa used those figures to frame phone-based payment acceptance as a financial-access channel, while the public record still lacks country-level adoption data for the new Visa Accept rollout.
Visa also cited cash-flow pressure among small firms.
In the company's survey, 1 in 5 SMB respondents reported cash-flow gaps on a daily or monthly basis.
Nearly 28% reported problems using or applying for credit or borrowing tools during the last 12 months.
Visa Direct Adds Payouts From The Same Device
Visa Direct is the payout side of the update.
Visa said the service can be embedded in banking, fintech and business platforms.
The company listed staff, contractors, drivers, customer refunds, incentives and cross-border transfers as payout uses for eligible cards, bank accounts and digital wallets.
Shahebaz Khan, a Visa senior vice president for CEMEA commercial and money movement products, said Visa wants a single smartphone to let sellers accept payments, gain insights and run customer interactions.
Pricing, merchant fees, all supported markets, acquirer requirements, full bank participation, regulatory approvals by country or a dated path to the 2027 target of reaching millions of merchants remain outside the public record.
