Shahebaz Khan, senior vice-president and head of commercial and money movement solutions for CEMEA at Visa. Global firm Visa is expanding the capabilities that will help smart merchants set up and reduce barriers to accept digital payments.This, as 1.3 billion people across the globe remain outside the formal banking ecosystem, with more than half in the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMEA) region.Similarly, 90 million merchants in the region reportedly don’t accept digital payments, it was noted at the Visa Payments Forum.The new capabilities that will be introduced will be across Visa Accept and Visa Direct.Visa Accept enables micro-sellers to accept card payments using a smartphone. It turns the smartphone into a card terminal, allowing a micro-seller to accept card payments through their Visa debit or prepaid account. See also With Visa Direct, small businesses can pay others through its real-time money movement platform for payouts. Visa Direct is embedded in banking, fintech and business platforms. A small business owner can use their phone to send payouts to staff, contractors or drivers.Shahebaz Khan, senior vice-president and head of commercial and money movement solutions for CEMEA, said the Visa Accept and Visa Direct additional capabilities aim to enable a large proportion of merchants to accept digital payments and make them more effective and smarter for small business. Visa Accept is currently rolling out primarily across several emerging markets in the CEMEA region with banks, including HNB in Sri Lanka, Banco Agromercantil de Guatemala, Sacomb and VPBank in Vietnam. Co-op Bank in Kenya, as well as Access Bank, OmniBSIC Bank and Universal Merchant Bank in Ghana, are set to launch in the coming weeks.“Every tap, scan and swipe is now a defining moment in the customer relationship, and small businesses can’t afford for payments to get in the way,” said Khan. “We see a future where a single smartphone is all a seller needs to accept any way customers want to pay, gain powerful insights and confidently run their business, so they can spend less time on payment friction and more time creating the experiences that keep customers coming back.”According to Visa, as more commerce moves to smartphones, small businesses need simple ways to accept the payments customers use – from cards and digital wallets.The company expects Visa Accept to be available to millions of merchants worldwide by 2027.Visa’s Global SMB Macro Trends Report found that one in five surveyed small and medium businesses face cash-flow gaps daily or monthly, while nearly 28% reported issues using or applying for credit or borrowing tools in the last 12 months.Khan added that another value merchants get by digitising their payments – whether it’s receipts or payments – is they start building a credible footprint of their business that can be used for access to credit, etc. The payments firm hosted its Visa Payments Forum in Paris this week, bringing together partners from the CEMEA region to unpack the future of payments and introduce new financial service offerings.