The training centre, located at MasterCard's East Africa offices in Eldama Park, off Peponi Road, will be used for training purposes for merchants, retailers and other partners. The facility, which can seat up to 40 people at a time, will be used to host project meetings to enhance awareness of global payments industry best practice in issuance of cards, retail payments and technical aspects of cashless transactions. In addition, the training centre will facilitate workshops to address issues that are important to stakeholders in the payments industry including: the latest MasterCard payment technologies, EMV migration, data security standards, customer service trends and retailer best practices.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the MasterCard Training Centre, Deputy President William Ruto commented: "We are pleased about MasterCard's commitment to working cohesively with local and regional stakeholders in the payments industry so as to arrive at locally-relevant solutions that will help propel Kenya's payments infrastructure. In order to maintain Kenya's status as the innovation hub in East Africa, we are committed to working with companies such as MasterCard to continually deliver on the best financially-inclusive payment solutions for all Kenyans."

Michael Miebach, President, MasterCard Middle East and Africa, commented: "As we make major strides towards a world beyond cash in Kenya, we are helping secure a better, more inclusive payments landscape for everyone. This training facility demonstrates our commitment to harnessing our global technology and expertise for the betterment of the financial industry and electronic payments in Kenya and East Africa."

Since the launch of its East Africa headquarters in Nairobi in 2012, MasterCard has been working with various payments industry players to introduce a suite of products and services that are transforming the payments industry landscape. Some of these include partnerships to roll out EMV, PayPass™-enabled cards, MPOS technology and other payment streams that demonstrate cognizance for Kenya's demand for cutting-edge technologies.

The Kenya Credit and Debit Card Association is among the partners that MasterCard will house within the new training centre. KCDCA has been offered access to use the facility to host various project meetings and workshops for the next six months.

In addition, the MasterCard training centre will host the Kenya Bankers' Association, who will use the facility to conduct sessions on migration to the more secure EMV Chip and Pin standards. KBA will host member banks, retailers, and other partners in exercises aimed to boost preparedness for adoption and migration of financial services to EMV standards across the industry.