Verve Surpasses 50m Payment Cards, Consolidates Market Share

Emma Okonji

Verve International, Africa’s first domestic payments scheme has announced a remarkable new milestone in its business, with over 50 million issued payment cards, while consolidating its growing market share in Nigeria – in terms of card issuance and transactions.

The development comes barely a year after the scheme announced it had issued 35 million cards in Nigeria in March 2022, translating to 42 per cent growth in issuance volumes year-on-year (YoY).

Verve has become the payment card of choice across various tiers of banking service and particularly within the burgeoning fintech space in Nigeria.

In October 2022, Verve and Opay announced a significant partnership in Nigeria, rolling out the OPay Verve Instant Debit Card, directly linked to OPay user wallets, thereby making it easy and convenient to make payments for goods and services, essentially empowering millions of Opay users to transact with Verve cards directly from their wallets

Verve, as Africa’s premier and leading domestic payment cards scheme, is focused on addressing peculiar market challenges in Africa by providing secure and cost-effective payment options for individuals and businesses to exchange value. Verve offers both virtual and physical cards that facilitate payment for an increasing number of international services in local currency, and has made significant progress in this regard, having achieved merchant acceptance with platforms such as Netflix, Showmax, Amazon Prime, Facebook, Microsoft, Uber, and Flywire. Verve also has a number of major partnerships in the works, underscoring its strong resolve to continue to drive such partnerships that provide users in Africa convenient opportunities to access global services in local denominations.

On the African front, Verve cardholders are provided with the benefit of using the Verve card in Nigeria and over 21 other African countries, underscoring the company’s resolve to ensure the seamlessness of transactions across the continent, particularly for the critical mass of consumer demographics, whilst driving value and efficiency for African financial institutions.

Speaking on this latest business milestone Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Verve International, Vincent Ogbunude, stated that Verve would continue to provide innovative ways to make transactions and payment more secure and convenient for our customers across Africa and beyond.

He said: “As the progressive shift towards cashless payments accelerates, and in view of the peculiarities of the markets in which we do business, it has become important that we continue to consolidate in delivering global-standard payment solutions tailored to economic and operational realities of the environment, whilst doubling-down on value-adding partnerships that ensure we scale our impact and turbo-charge financial inclusion on the African continent.”