Arab Financial Services (AFS) and Visa have announced their SME Partner Programme to launch prepaid cards for businesses in Bahrain and Oman.

As the leading digital payment solutions provider and fintech enabler in the Middle East and Africa, AFS is also a prominent merchant acquirer in Bahrain and Oman, with state-of-the-art digital payments acceptance solutions and services that have become the payments solutions of choice in both markets.

AFS and Visa's collaboration will pave the way for digitizing merchant settlements through prepaid cards and launching digital credentials for AFS’s large merchant base in both countries.

Samer Soliman, Chief Executive Officer at AFS said: “The strategic partnership between AFS and Visa represents a step forward for business’ digital payments in Bahrain and Oman as well as our shared vision of digitized payments ecosystems. This will be the first B2B use case for prepaid cards, and we plan to expand this offering to other markets in the Middle East and Africa. Together, AFS and Visa can quickly bring to the market prepaid cards that are designed with security at the core and have the potential for enhancement and growth over time. I look forward to a fruitful and ever-growing collaboration that will evolve to other areas like Fintech Partnership amongst others.”

Ali Bailoun, Regional General Manager - Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman at Visa, said: “Through this partnership, AFS would be enabling their merchant community with Visa prepaid credentials in both Bahrain and Oman, which is in line with our mission of digitizing the merchant ecosystem. We look forward to deepening our partnership with AFS and expanding our collaboration with them across digital acceptance, Fintech enablement and other areas.”

Regulated by The Central Bank of Bahrain, and majority-owned by Bank ABC, AFS boasts numerous ground-breaking end-to-end digital payment services and solutions. These span debit, credit, and Islamic card processing, merchant acquiring, fintech, and a suite of state-of-the-art value-added services.

AFS has offices and data centers in Bahrain, Egypt, Oman, and the UAE. – TradeArabia News Service