MasterCard Appoints Ofili New Vice President sub-Saharan Africa

MasterCard has appointed Ezediashi Ofili as Vice President and Business Leader to drive the growth of its Prepaid Business in sub-Saharan Africa. He will also oversee MasterCard’s Global Products and Solutions team in the region.

Ofili joins MasterCard from Access Bank PLC where he was the Head of Business Engagement for Northern Nigeria.  With more than twenty years’ experience in the banking, energy, Information Technology and credit rating sectors in both Africa and Europe, Mr. Ofili has played a key role in several major projects most recently the launch of the Nigeria National Identity Card project.
MasterCard is seeking to expand its prepaid product offering in the region and has partnered with several financial institutions to drive this strategy.

Commenting on the appointment Daniel Monehin, MasterCard’s Division President sub-Saharan Africa, said growing the prepaid business in Africa would bring more people into the formal financial system thereby increasing levels of financial inclusion in the continent.

“We are happy to welcome Mr. Ofili to the MasterCard team. As we work towards realising our vision of a world beyond cash we acknowledge that Africa’s position as an emerging market provides increasing opportunities for the growth of prepaid card payments, especially as the market begins to witness a shift from cash to cashless transactions,” said Monehin.

Mr. Ofili is a qualified Petroleum Engineer from the University of Ibadan, and is also a Microsoft Certified Engineer and Project Management Professional with PRINCE2 certification. In addition to that he holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration – Strategic Management of Technology – from Cass Business School in London.

“The potential for Africa to become as technologically advanced as its counterparts in the developed world in the area of payments is enormous, and I look forward to contributing to this growth,” said Ofili following his appointment.