Visa is partnering with African telecommunications company Bharti Airtel to link Visa cards to customers' mobile phones. For the past several years, Africans have been using linking their phones to prepaid payment accounts, in order to send money to each other, pay utility bills or buy more airtime. [...] Airtel Money subscribers in Kenya will be able to get a physical Visa card tied to their mobile payment accounts, so they can use their phone's pre-paid account to shop in stores and online wherever Visa is accepted. MasterCard also said it is doing mobile pay deals in Zimbabwe and Nigeria to allow certain banking customers in those countries to receive funds sent by family and friends abroad directly into mobile pay accounts.