Author Sokhu Sibiya
Africa’s payments landscape is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation — and global brands are starting to take notice. Uber’s decision to drop card giant Visa in Kenya is more than a tactical shift; it reflects a deeper realignment toward mobile-first, locally rooted financial ecosystems. In this Q&A, Clarice Leaman, Alternative Payment Methods Head at dLocal, unpacks how alternative payment methods are reshaping growth, competition, and customer experience across high-growth markets. As their adoption accelerates, companies are rethinking how to connect global platforms with local consumers across Africa and beyond.
1. Uber’s recent move to drop Visa in Kenya signals more than a local payment adjustment — it suggests a structural shift in how global brands view emerging markets. From your vantage point at dLocal, what does this decision tell us about the changing hierarchy of payment methods across Africa and other high-growth regions?
From my perspective, Uber’s move is a visible sign of something we’ve been seeing for years under the surface, where cards are no longer the “default” rail in many high‑growth markets. In places such as Kenya, users don’t think “card first” when paying, they think M‑Pesa, bank transfer, USSD or wallet balance. Uber is simply aligning with the way money really moves locally.
What this tells us is that the hierarchy of payment methods is being inverted. In emerging markets, local rails, such as mobile money, real‑time bank transfers, domestic schemes are becoming primary, and global card networks are increasingly a complement for specific segments like affluent or international customers. For a global brand, this is a strategic switch. Revenue, risk, and user growth now depend on how well you plug into local ecosystems, not on how many card types you accept.
That is exactly our experience at dLocal. When we work with global platforms across Africa, Latin America, and Asia, we see the same pattern: wherever a local method offers better reach, lower cost, and fewer points of friction, volumes naturally migrate there. Uber’s decision in Kenya just makes this reality more visible to everyone else.
2. For decades, card networks were seen as the gold standard of digital payments. Yet with platforms like M-Pesa achieving 91% penetration in Kenya, are we witnessing a reversal where local payment systems are setting the global benchmark for customer experience, reach, and efficiency?
I do think we’re seeing a re‑setting of the benchmark, especially on customer experience and reach. Penetrations of 90% or more of M‑Pesa in Kenya or Pix in Brazil means that for most people, the reference point for a “good” payment is an instant, mobile‑first, low‑ticket transaction that works on any phone and is integrated into daily life; from transport to utilities to P2P.
Global players are increasingly trying to replicate those attributes with instant confirmation, no dependency on formal banking, low or transparent fees, and a UX that doesn’t require users to understand card jargon. In that sense, local systems are exporting design principles, even if the underlying rails differ. You see it in the growth of account‑to‑account payments, QR, and wallets in other regions.
That said, the card networks still set important standards around interoperability, dispute frameworks, and global acceptance. What’s changing is that local systems are raising the bar on what “good” looks like for everyday payments, while cards remain essential for cross‑border, higher‑value, and credit‑based use cases. The future is not “cards versus local rails”; it’s a hybrid model where local systems define the user experience and cards provide global connectivity and trust.
3. As a cross-border payments leader operating in more than 60 markets, dLocal has a front-row seat to these shifts. What concrete patterns are you seeing across Africa, Latin America, and Asia that suggest alternative payment methods are no longer a compromise — but rather a competitive advantage for global brands?
Because we operate in more than 60 markets, we see three very consistent patterns that show alternative payment methods are now a strategic advantage, not a compromise:
- APMs unlock real growth, not just cost savings.
When a merchant turns on the “right” local methods – say, mobile money in East Africa, Pix in Brazil, or locally preferred wallets – we often see step‑changes in approval rates and first‑purchase conversion, especially for new‑to‑bank or underbanked users. That’s incremental revenue that simply wouldn’t happen if you only offered cards.
- One global brand, many local checkout experiences.
The most successful merchants deliberately de‑standardize checkout. A ride‑hailing app or marketplace might feel identical from a branding standpoint, but underneath, the payment mix is radically different: M‑Pesa and Airtel Money in one country, cash and vouchers in another, instant bank transfer in a third. They use partners like dLocal to abstract that complexity while still optimizing locally.
- Risk and unit economics actually improve with APMs.
There’s a perception that more methods equal more operational overhead. In practice, many APMs reduce chargeback exposure, lower fraud vectors, and bring down acceptance costs. Combined with better conversion, that creates a better margin profile per transaction. For global brands operating at scale, that’s a clear competitive edge.
The thread across Africa, Latin America, and Asia is that “local‑first payments” increasingly correlate with higher growth and better unit economics. That’s why we see product, risk, and commercial teams treating APMs as core to their go‑to‑market, not as an afterthought managed only by payments teams.
4. Finally, as Kenya leans further into mobile-first payments, what will the user experience look like for tourists and business travellers arriving in the country and relying on e-hailing services? Will alternative payment methods such as M-Pesa offer a seamless on-ramp for international visitors — or will global platforms need to rethink how they bridge local payment ecosystems with foreign users?
For visitors landing in Kenya and opening an e‑hailing app, I see two layers of experience emerging.
On the surface, the user will likely still see familiar options: pay with a card, maybe use a stored wallet in their home currency. But under the hood, platforms will increasingly settle locally using local rails, because that’s how drivers and local partners want to be paid. The complexity is abstracted away from the traveller.
For those who do have local mobile money, such as long‑stay business travellers, diaspora, regional workers, I expect a very smooth on‑ramp: link your M‑Pesa wallet once, pay rides instantly, receive refunds or incentives directly to your phone balance, possibly even split fares P2P. That’s where alternative methods become a full experience, not just a “payment button”.
The real design challenge for global platforms will be: how do you bridge a foreign identity and card with a local ecosystem that is SIM‑ and ID‑driven? Solving this means:
- Making FX and fees transparent for visitors.
- Handling KYC and compliance without adding friction.
- Designing flows where a traveller can pay “as usual” while the platform orchestrates local settlement, payouts, and reconciliation.
In the end, the winners will be the platforms that let tourists feel like they’re using a familiar global app, while behaving like a local fintech under the hood; deeply integrated into the broader Kenyan payment stack.
