Visa Inc, the world's largest credit and debit card processing network, today said that it is acquiring South African mobile financial services firm Fundamo, for $110 million in cash.

Fundamo, privately held by a group of South African investors that include Sanlam, Remgro Limited, and HBD Venture Capital operates in over 40 countries, including 27 countries in Africa and the Middle East and another 10 globally.

Fundamo, based in Cape Town, is a platform provider of mobile financial services for mobile network operators and financial institutions in developing economies.

The acquisition will accelerate the execution of Visa's global strategy announced last month to provide the next generation of payments solutions, enabling consumers to transact wherever and whenever they choose, using a card, a computer or a mobile device with Visa's reliability, security and global acceptance.  

San Francisco-based Visa also signed a new, long-term commercial agreement with Monitise Plc, a provider of mobile money solutions for financial institutions.

"Combining Visa's unparalleled network scale, global reach, extensive product suite and established financial institution relationships with Fundamo's expertise in delivering mobile financial services in developing economies presents us with an important long-term opportunity to grow our business and drive financial inclusion in key geographic markets," said Joseph Saunders, chairman and CEO of Visa.

"Mobile network operators and financial institutions will now be able to take advantage of Fundamo's trusted mobile financial services platform backed by Visa's high standards for security, reliability and scale," said Hannes van Rensburg, CEO of Fundamo.