Mastercard and Flowcart partner to enable social commerce payments in East Africa

Mastercard has partnered with Flowcart to integrate secure card payments directly into social and conversational commerce platforms. The initiative is launching in Kenya, where WhatsApp currently handles over 20% of all online shopping orders, before expanding across East Africa and into markets such as South Africa, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire.

The collaboration utilizes Flowcart’s AI-powered commerce orchestration platform to enable a “chat-to-pay” experience. This allows consumers to discover products, place orders, and complete transactions within a single chat-based journey, removing the need to redirect to external websites or apps. The technology uses embedded links, QR codes, or native checkout flows powered by Mastercard Gateway.

Flowcart’s AI automates the transition from customer inquiry to a priced order by generating carts based on natural language requests. This solution aims to support the growing creator economy and enable merchants—ranging from individual social sellers to large enterprises—to accept digital payments without requiring a traditional website or point-of-sale system.