Verve International is a Nigerian Pan-African and multinational financial technology and payment card brand owned by

Interswitch Interswitch is a leading African integrated payments and digital commerce platform company headquartered in Lagos. Founded in 2002 in Nigeria, as a transaction switching and processing company with national focus, Interswitch progressively evolved ...

Group.

Background

It was founded in 2009, as a subsidiary of

. In 2013, it became an autonomous

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

entity in a restructuring exercise. In 2005 the

Central Bank of Nigeria The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is the central bank and apex monetary authority of Nigeria established by the CBN Act of 1958 and commenced operations on 1 July 1959. The major regulatory objectives of the bank as stated in the CBN Act are ...

's issued a mandate to the Nigerian payment industry that operators should migrate from magnetic strip to EMV chip and PIN platform by 2009. The CBN migration policy was adopted to phase out the magnetic strip when the

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

became susceptible to fraudulent transactions. It initially issued six million cards in partnership with several Nigerian banks. Verve offers card products in Nigeria. In 2013, Verve was reported to have "over 20 million cards in circulation and access over 119,631 points of sale, 11, 287 ATMs and over 1,000 online merchants." In March 2013,

Discover Financial Services Discover Financial Services is an American financial services company that owns and operates Discover Bank, which offers Checking account, checking and savings accounts, personal loans, home equity loans, student loans and credit cards. It also o ...

partnered with

, which enabled the acceptance of Verve Cards across the Discover global network, covering 185 countries and territories as at the time of the agreement. The alliance also allowed acceptance of Discover and Diners Club International (DCI) Cards at Interswitch-enabled ATM and point-of-sale (POS) terminals for purchases in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

. A media report in 2015 said "Verve is issued by 40 banks in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

with more than 30 million payment tokens in circulation." In October same year, Verve launched its entry into the East African payment market with strategic partnership with

Kenya Commercial Bank KCB Bank Kenya Limited is a financial services provider headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. It is licensed as a commercial bank, by the Central Bank of Kenya, the national banking regulator. The bank has also been running Agency banking model ...

(KCB) "to expand Verve Card acceptance and payment services in six key East African markets", namely: Kenya, Tanzania,

Burundi Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...

, South Sudan,

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

and

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

References

Online payments Nigerian brands Technology companies of Nigeria Electronic funds transfer Payment service providers Multinational companies based in Lagos Corporate subsidiaries {{Lagos-stub

Background

See also

References