Visa recently launched a consumer education campaign, dubbed Sasuza Visa, that aims to eliminate the practice of surcharging, where merchants levy extra charges on payments made using debit or credit cards at a Point of Sale (POS). Consumers are often discouraged from transacting directly using their Visa card because they are charged extra amounts when they do. With this campaign, Visa aims to inform the public that they can pay using their Visa card at no cost.
There has been an increasing demand among consumers and merchants to take advantage of the benefits of cashless payments in light of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Visa wants to ensure that capabilities are made widely available and updated specifically to help meet any challenges involved. This includes ensuring that merchants do not surcharge consumers who are using their Visa card to pay for goods and services.
The Sasuza Visa campaign is also very timely because Uganda, like the rest of the world, is battling with the novel Coronavirus pandemic and the company is joining the Government of Uganda to encourage Ugandans to protect themselves by practicing cashless payments along with physical distancing and good hygiene practices.
Currently, Visa enjoys unique partnerships with many banking institutions in Uganda and many Ugandans possess debit and credit cards from these institutions. With the disruption caused by the pandemic, Visa card holders ought to feel safe when transacting.
As part of the campaign, Visa is also partnering with various merchants such as supermarkets and fuel stations to ensure consumers enjoy convenient and safe transactions when using their Visa card to pay for their purchases.
Supporting businesses disrupted by Covid-19
Globally, Visa and its partners connect more than 61 million merchant locations. This puts the company in a unique position to help businesses drive sales in this critical moment. Leveraging its network, partners and products they are helping sellers get online easily to reach more consumers; by sharing data and insights to help businesses build their brands; and helping buyers and sellers work together through uncertainty.
Some truths recognized in this new normal that Visa is using to guide product priorities to support sellers include:
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- Consumers are shifting to digital-first commerce – no matter what they are buying.
- Small businesses around the globe are seeking quick and immediate paths to recovery as many navigate the overnight move to digital commerce.
- Sellers, partners, employees and customers need and expect secure, immediate access to funds digitally and as one of the most trusted payments network in the world, Visa delivers fast and secure money movement options that address pain points today.
- Cashless payment experiences are a necessity – avoiding contact while buying is better for health and safety.
How Visa fights fraud
Fraudsters are building up a wealth of personal information on people’s day-to-day lifestyle, such as the stores they frequent, the bank or credit union they belong to, or the subscription services they have signed up for.
The single most important advice to remember is: don’t reveal personal information in unsolicited communication. If you get a call, SMS or e-mail asking for personal or financial information, just ignore and hang up. If you think it was really your bank, your payment card issuer, or someone from the government trying to contact you, you can always call them back by dialing the relevant organization’s official number. This is what is constantly stressed to consumers, helping them to understand that they are the first line of defense.
Visa works tirelessly to meet consumers’ payment needs around security, reliability, convenience, and trust. Their success is attributed to intelligent technology deployed and educational tools and communication platforms created to educate consumers.
Visa’s Risk team operates with 24x7x365 vigilance to detect, prevent, and respond to threats in real-time. They have kept global fraud rates at historic lows—less than 0.1 percent —through a multi-layered approach of investing in human capital and technology like Artificial Intelligence.
What does the future hold for Visa users?
Visa is keen on being part of the everyday life of consumers. With the ever-changing face of monetary transactions, consumers have become more techno savvy, decisive and particular about their overall experience while transacting. To this end, Visa’s operations in Uganda are firmly based on bringing about innovative products that promote safe and convenient transactions.
As a leading global payments technology company, Visa understands that the most important contribution they can make to the society is to bring more people into the formal financial system. They do so by creating pathways to financial inclusion for the financially under served through their products, services, technology, and payments expertise as well as strategic partnerships.
Visa believes that its strategy is aligned to that of Uganda’s five-year National Financial Inclusion Strategy that was launched in October 2017, which seeks to reduce financial exclusion from 15% to 5% by 2022 by ensuring that all Ugandans have access to and use a broad range of quality and affordable financial services.
Visa is committed to leading the industry toward a more secure, trusted payment system and they continue to share their global experience of driving the growth of electronic payments in over 200 countries and territories around the world, with the regulator and other industry stakeholders in the country.
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