International financial services provider Standard Charter PLC announced a partnership with Airtel Africa and MasterCard International this week. The partnership will bring "the world’s first virtual shopping card on a mobile phone" to Kenya. The new virtual shopping card will let Airtel Money subscribers buy products online for the first time, the company said.

According to Standard Charter's announcement, Airtel Money users will be able to request a single-use virtual card number good for 24 hours using funds from their Airtel Money accounts. The card number will work like a regular credit card for online purchases.

Standard Charter said the offer is currently exclusive to Airtel Money customers in Kenya, but that launches in several other African markets are expected.

“Most of the countries where we operate are emerging markets and largely cash economies and an increasing proportion of that cash is likely to become digitized, in the form of virtual cash on mobile phones," said Janardhan Cadambi, the global head of Standard Charter's retail banking products and consumer finance, in the announcement.

Cadambi said that by working companies like MasterCard and Airtel Africa, Standard Charter aims to provide state-of-the-art banking services that meet the changing needs of customers and enable access to finance for millions of people in Kenya and other markets.

In the company's statement, Standard Charter said mobile payments are dependent on a strong collaboration between mobile operators and banks with operators providing the consumer interface, the network and the phone technology, and banks providing the regulatory framework, the infrastructure needed to hold deposits and help protect customers against fraud.

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