The real reason Uber stopped taking Visa cards in Kenya and why it matters to riders
In a market built on mobile money, the removal of a familiar card still manages to unsettle the routine
Open the Uber app in Kenya today and something ordinary is missing. Visa is gone. For a service built on frictionless taps and invisible transactions, the absence feels oddly heavy. Riders are nudged toward cash, mobile money, Mastercard-linked cards, gift cards, or PayPal. The company points to payment processing costs. The explanation is tidy. The consequences are not.
Kenya is not a marginal market for cards. Visa remains the most common option for urban professionals, expatriates, frequent travelers, and anyone who prefers a clear digital trail. Removing it exposes how finely balanced the economics of ride-hailing have become, especially in markets where mobile money already dominates daily commerce.
The move also lands on old bruises. For years, card-paying users have traded stories about double charges, rides that never properly closed in the app, and drivers insisting on mobile money after a card transaction supposedly failed. Uber says it investigates and deactivates where necessary. Riders say the system too often leaves them to clean up the mess.
Cost pressure meets a market that already has options
Card payments are expensive in a way that mobile money often is not. Each swipe or tap carries interchange fees, network assessments, and processor charges that can climb toward the upper end of the low single digits. On thin margins, those percentages add up quickly. For a platform that takes a cut from every trip, the math becomes unforgiving.
Kenya offers an escape hatch. M-Pesa and Airtel Money sit at the center of everyday life, trusted by users and favored by merchants. Cash still circulates with ease. In that context, dropping Visa reduces costs without collapsing demand. Riders grumble, then adapt. Many already have.
That calculation would be harder in markets where cards are the only serious option. Kenya’s payments landscape gives platforms leverage. It also creates a hierarchy of users, where those tied to international cards feel the loss more sharply than riders who live comfortably inside the mobile money ecosystem.
Old complaints that never quite went away
The timing matters. Last year’s complaints around card billing did real damage to trust. Some riders reported paying by card, only to be pressed by drivers for mobile money on the spot. Others watched charges linger for days, or grow after a trip had ended. A few flagged deductions for rides they never took, sometimes linked to food delivery orders.
Uber has not connected the Visa decision to those issues. Still, the overlap is hard to ignore. Cards introduce complexity. Mobile money transactions tend to be immediate and final, with fewer intermediaries and fewer places for disputes to get lost. From a risk perspective, simplifying the stack has its appeal.
For users, though, the removal reads less like simplification and more like retreat. Cards offered a sense of distance and control. If something went wrong, the bank stood between rider and platform. Mobile money collapses that distance. Disputes feel more personal, more local, and sometimes harder to unwind.
A country-by-country approach with uneven effects
Uber says it reviews payment methods market by market. That flexibility is central to its global model. What works in Nairobi may not fly in New York. Yet this approach also fragments the user experience. A Kenyan rider traveling abroad can expect Visa to work again. A visitor arriving in Nairobi cannot assume the same.
The inconsistency hints at a broader tension. Global platforms promise standardization while constantly adjusting to local economics. Payments sit at the heart of that contradiction. They are invisible when they work and deeply political when they do not.
For Kenyan drivers, the change cuts both ways. Mobile money and cash settle quickly and reduce arguments over failed card charges. At the same time, cash increases risk and complicates accounting. Drivers who preferred cards for their own reasons now have fewer choices, just like riders.
What the absence of Visa reveals about platform power
This is not just a payments story. It is about leverage. Uber can drop a dominant card network in a major African market and keep operating. Visa cannot force its way back in without addressing the cost structure that made the relationship unattractive in the first place. Riders, meanwhile, absorb the adjustment.
That balance says something about where power sits in digital transport. Platforms arbitrate between banks, telcos, drivers, and users, trimming connections that no longer suit them. Each cut is framed as operational necessity. Accumulated, they reshape how people pay, move, and trust.
It also raises questions for regulators and competition authorities. When a single app becomes a daily utility, its payment decisions ripple outward. Card networks lose volume. Mobile money gains more gravity. Consumers adapt, but not always by choice.
Where this leaves riders and the road ahead
In the near term, most riders will cope. Kenya’s payments muscle memory is strong. The app still works. Cars still arrive. Over time, though, the removal of Visa narrows the bridge between local platforms and global financial systems. That matters for cross-border users, for tourism, for anyone paid in currencies that do not flow easily into mobile wallets.
Uber could reverse course if costs fall or if customer pushback grows louder. Card networks could respond with revised pricing for markets where mobile money exerts pressure. More likely, the status quo holds and other platforms watch closely.
For now, the missing Visa logo serves as a small but telling marker. It shows how global tech adapts when local economics push back, and how users are expected to follow. The ride continues. The payment landscape underneath it keeps changing, one option at a time.
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