Anna Jones new Southern African MasterCard area head

MasterCard will now manage the Middle East and Africa region through four distinct areas, namely the Middle East, North Africa and Levant, Central Africa (including East and West Africa) and Southern Africa in order to provide the best possible localised support to its customers. while ensuring that it continues to make best use of its global expertise in innovative payment solutions.

Growing Southern Africa

Jones says that the company will follow a three-pronged business strategy that will aim to provide simple and secure electronic payment solutions to consumers and customers across Southern Africa.

"This involves growing our core business of debit, credit and pre-paid products; diversifying into new geographies and new customer segments such as government and telecommunications companies; and building new businesses in eCommerce, mobile, and information services.

"At the same time we want to use our role as an organisation at the heart of commerce to deliver a real and positive benefit to society," she says.

Jones plans to work closely with her team to further develop the organisation's business throughout Southern Africa. "The Southern Africa region covers a diverse group of markets, where, for example, GDP per capita ranges from $13,100 in Botswana to $400 in Zimbabwe. Additionally, these markets are all at different levels of payments maturity.

"It is also a region that is, and always has been, heavily reliant on cash - both in the consumer and corporate sectors - which poses many challenges in the way of security, cost and convenience," she adds.

Jones and her team aim to face this challenge head-on and will be collaborating with customer financial institutions, merchants and governments in key markets within the region to help build up a robust and inclusive financial infrastructure that will educate consumers and the business community on the advantages of electronic payments.

"With the ever-growing prevalence of remittances and cross-border spend, and with the high number of migrant workers employed across the Southern Africa region, there is a real opportunity to make transacting seamless, safe and as convenient as possible, which is where it can add real value," Jones says.

From a financial inclusion perspective, Jones is also eager to help steer the company's innovation into areas other than pure credit and debit card-based payments.

"The payments industry has a critical role to play in financial inclusion and empowerment and this is where I hope to have the biggest impact in my new role," she concludes.