Mastercard and Flowcart bring WhatsApp card payments to Kenya
Finance
Published: 2026-09-09T20:20:45 · Updated: 2026-09-09T18:20:45Z
Mobile money handles 65.7% of Kenyan e-commerce. Cards account for 10.2%. This partnership is going after that gap.
Mastercard and Flowcart announced a partnership on September 7 that lets Kenyan shoppers pay by card without leaving a WhatsApp conversation. Mastercard Gateway and its acquiring partners will connect to Flowcart's existing In-Chat Checkout, so customers can go from browsing to payment inside the same WhatsApp thread.
The expansion plan runs to East Africa first, then South Africa, Nigeria, and Côte d'Ivoire.
Flowcart Is Not Building This From Scratch
Flowcart, previously known as Sukhiba, has been running WhatsApp commerce tools since 2021. The company rebranded last year and already connects to more than 50 payment gateways. The Mastercard partnership adds card-payment infrastructure to a checkout system that already exists.
When a customer selects card payment, the transaction can be completed through an embedded link, a QR code, or a native checkout flow powered by Mastercard Gateway and its local acquiring partners. Card details can also be tokenised for repeat purchases, meaning the original card information doesn't need to be re-entered every time.
Mastercard hasn't named the Kenyan acquirers participating in the rollout.
The Market Context Is Important
WhatsApp is a genuine shopping channel in Kenya. A Communications Authority survey of 2,400 respondents found that among channels used for placing e-commerce orders, mobile apps accounted for 44.8%, WhatsApp for 20.2%, and website portals for 12%. WhatsApp ranked ahead of websites as an order channel.
That finding is often quoted as WhatsApp handling 20% of all online shopping transactions in Kenya. The CA survey doesn't say that. It says 20.2% of respondents used WhatsApp as a channel for placing or receiving orders. The distinction matters.
More relevant to what Mastercard and Flowcart are trying to do is the payment preference data in the same report. Mobile money was the preferred e-commerce payment method for 65.7% of respondents. Credit and debit cards came in at 10.2%.
What This Partnership Is Actually Selling
A Kenyan merchant can already conduct a full WhatsApp sale today. A customer browses, orders, and pays through M-Pesa without leaving the app. The Mastercard and Flowcart integration makes cards another option inside that same journey, primarily useful for customers who prefer cards or for cross-border transactions where M-Pesa isn't available.
Mastercard's own SME Confidence Index found that 95% of Kenyan SMEs surveyed accepted mobile payments, and 80% said simple, user-friendly payment methods were important for future growth. Those figures come from a Mastercard-commissioned survey rather than independent research, so they should be read accordingly.
What merchants will actually pay for the card integration hasn't been announced. Neither Mastercard nor Flowcart has published pricing. Flowcart's terms do note that Meta messaging charges for WhatsApp Business can be passed on to clients.
Source: Tech-ish