Verve Hits 70m Payment Cards in Nigeria, Consolidates Market Leadership
Agnes Ekebuike
Verve International, Africa’s largest domestic payments scheme, has again announced another remarkable new growth milestone, further consolidating its growing market share in Nigeria, in terms of payment card issuance and transactions.
Verve Payment Cards in Nigeria, Africa’s largest consumer market and its pioneer country of issuance have now surpassed 70 million issued payment cards to date. This development comes 15 months after the scheme announced it had issued 50 million payment cards in Nigeria in July last year, translating to over 40 per cent growth in issuance volumes YoY.
Over the last few years, Verve has grown to become the payment card of choice across various tiers of banking service and particularly within the burgeoning fintech/neobank space in Nigeria, on the back of significant strategic partnerships across commercial and microfinance banking spheres, as well as fintechs.
In the last three years, Verve has made significant progress in this regard, having achieved merchant acceptance with platforms such as Google, Spotify, Netflix, Showmax, Amazon Prime, Facebook, Microsoft, Uber, and Flywire, underscoring a strong resolve to continue to drive relevant partnerships that provide its users in Africa, convenient opportunities to access global services in local denominations.
Outside Nigeria, 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, while driving value and efficiency for African financial institutions.
Particularly noteworthy, are rapidly expanding issuing and acceptance partnerships across East Africa, including major financial institutions like KCB Group and more recently Equity Bank, in addition to a growing network of savings and credit societies (SACCOs) across Kenya and Uganda.
Speaking on the latest business milestone Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Verve International, Vincent Ogbunude, asserted that Verve would continue to provide innovative ways to make transactions and payment more secure and convenient for customers, not only in Nigeria across Africa and beyond, whilst providing unparalleled business value for business partners from both issuing and acquiring perspectives.
“At Verve International, we continue to consolidate our delivery of global-standard payment solutions howbeit essentially tailored to economic and operational realities of the markets where we play across Africa, whilst leveraging value-adding partnerships that ensure we scale our impact and turbo-charge financial inclusion on the African continent. We are greatly delighted again at this point to celebrate another phenomenal milestone, having added 20 million new payment cards to our base in Nigeria, for which we are extremely appreciative of our issuing partners as well as our loyal cardholders,” Ogbunude said.
