VerveAfrica’s first and largest domestic card scheme. Verve leads issuance in Nigeria thanks to its interchange cost and ATM acceptance, and it is expanding abroad, with a launch in Kenya. It is Africa’s counterexample to Visa and Mastercard dominance.Verve International (subsidiary of Interswitch) · since 2009More than 70 million cards issued in Nigeria (Interswitch, October 2025 release), compared with 50 million in July 2024, or 40% growth in about 15 months.
Global registry · Africa & Middle East · West Africa
Nigeria Payment systems
14 systems listed.
CurrencyNaira (NGN)
Domestic schemeVerve
RegulatorCentral Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
Leading payment methods
NIP transfers (A2A)Cards (Verve, Visa, MC)Wallets (OPay, PalmPay)CashUSSD
E-commerce shares
Account-to-account · 45%Cards · 25%Wallets · 15%Cash · 10%Other · 5%
NIP (NIBSS Instant Payments). Unlike “telco-led” East Africa, Nigeria is bank-led: the NIP instant payment rail (2011) processed 11.2 billion transactions in 2024 (about NGN 1.07 quadrillion). A “transfer” is how people pay every day, down to street vendors.
NIP transactions11.2B (2024, NIBSS)
NIP value≈NGN 1.07 quadrillion (2024)
The 2023 banknote shortage, the result of a botched demonetization, pushed the country onto instant transfers. Fintechs OPay and PalmPay won tens of millions of users on the reliability of their transfers. Domestic card scheme: Verve.
Learn about this market. The guides and courses that cover it.
Payments in NigeriaPayments in East AfricaPayments in Portuguese-speaking and southern AfricaMobile money in AfricaPayments in West and Southern AfricaPayments in the CEMAC zoneAccepting payments in AfricaAccepting payments in Egypt and the MaghrebAccepting payments in the GulfCollecting payments in Kenya and East AfricaCollecting payments in Nigeria and West AfricaPayments in Africa: the continent that reinvented mobile money
Card schemes
AfriGOSovereign card scheme launched on January 26, 2023, by the central bank and NIBSS, billed as the first national scheme backed by an African state. Not to be confused with Verve, Interswitch’s private scheme: AfriGO is about sovereignty and saving foreign currency, since its transactions stay in the country.AfriGoPay Financial Services Limited (NIBSS subsidiary licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, set up to roll out and run the national card scheme) · since 2023More than 1 million cards issued and more than NGN 70 billion in transactions in 2025; accepted at more than 16,000 ATMs and about 70% of the country’s POS terminals (NIBSS, 2025)
Instant payments
NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP)Africa’s largest instant rail by volume, by far. It runs 24/7 on account number plus BVN (Bank Verification Number) addressing and has made cards almost incidental for P2P in Nigeria. Every merchant integration in Nigeria starts with NIP.NIBSS (Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System plc) (owned by the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) and Nigerian banks) · since 2011Nearly 11 billion transactions processed in 2024 (NIBSS/CBN, 2025). Nigerian electronic payments: NGN 284.99 trillion in Q1 2025, up 17.7% year over year (NIBSS, 2025).
Clearing and settlement
NEFT (NIBSS Electronic Funds Transfer)Nigeria’s bulk ACH, with deferred net settlement and an original lag of up to 24 hours, which is exactly what NIP was built to fix in 2011. It survives for batch payments (payroll, suppliers). ⚠️ It shares its name with India’s NEFT, run by the RBI, but the two are unrelated.NIBSS (Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System plc) (owned by the Central Bank of Nigeria and Nigerian banks) · since 2004
Wallets
OPayNigerian mass-market wallet that competes head-on with banks for person-to-person payments. NDIC deposit insurance sets it apart from a plain e-money issuer. The company publishes no user figures that can be verified, so the market shares attributed to it cannot be confirmed.OPay Digital Services Limited (Licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria; deposits are covered by the NDIC, Nigeria's deposit insurer.)
Chipper CashCross-border wallet for person-to-person transfers within Africa and to the US, plus virtual cards and stock trading. Two corrections to the original entry: the operator is not “Chipper Cash Inc.” but Critical Ideas, Inc., and Kenya is no longer among the six countries it says it serves. User figures remain self-reported and unaudited.Critical Ideas, Inc. (company operating the Chipper Cash brand; the US issuer registration (NMLS 2266748) is held by Voyse Technologies US, Inc.)More than 5 million users and more than 250,000 transactions a day claimed, and more than 1 million virtual Visa cards issued (chippercash.com, accessed August 2026)
Acquiring and processing
Interswitch / QuicktellerNigeria’s long-established transaction switch, now a pan-African group: switching, issuing (Verve), merchant acquiring, and a consumer wallet (Quickteller). A developer integrating Nigeria runs into Interswitch before NIBSS in the technical chain.Interswitch Group · since 2002More than 11,000 ATMs on its network (Interswitch, public data). Valued as a unicorn since 2019.
PaystackAn online acceptance PSP and the developer benchmark in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa. Its acquisition by Stripe remains Africa’s most-cited fintech exit and set the API standard for the region.Stripe (acquired in 2020) · since 2015
MoniepointNigerian acquirer and agency banking network: the terminal at the neighborhood shop and the cash-out agent. It operates under a microfinance bank license, not just a payment provider license. Its user figures are self-reported and inconsistent: depending on the page, the company claims more than 10 million or more than 20 million customers.Moniepoint Microfinance Bank Limited (Microfinance bank regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria, licensed in February 2022.)
FlutterwavePan-African acquiring and payments aggregator, useful as a single multi-country provider (Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, South Africa, Egypt, the UK, the US, and others). All its public volume figures are self-reported and unaudited. Treat them as a commercial order of magnitude, never as a measurement.Flutterwave (Pan-African group; its US entity, Flutterwave Payments, LLC, is registered with FinCEN under NMLS ID 2391594, and the group says it has obtained a banking license in Nigeria, its main market.)More than 500,000 payments a day, more than 20 million API calls a day, more than 30 currencies, and a stated presence in 18 countries (Flutterwave, official website, 2026).
Central bank digital currency
eNairaAfrica’s first retail CBDC and a textbook case of failed adoption: almost none of the wallets opened were ever used. Yet the service has never been shut down. The Nigeria Payments System Vision 2028, published by the Central Bank of Nigeria on June 5, 2026, acknowledges slow adoption and repositions the eNaira on government-to-person and cross-border payments. Do not confuse failed adoption with a shutdown: the eNaira is technically still live.Central Bank of Nigeria · since 2021NGN 29 billion in cumulative transactions three years after launch (BusinessDay, 2024). A CBN official publicly acknowledged in November 2025 that the eNaira was not “a rosy story.”
Stablecoins
cNGNNaira stablecoin backed 1:1, issued by the private sector under regulatory supervision. It is the opposite bet from the eNaira: adoption through voluntary commercial use rather than a central bank mandate. Worth watching as a test case for the shift from CBDC to regulated stablecoin.African Stablecoin Consortium (ASC) (a private consortium operating under the supervision and in the sandbox of the CBN and Nigeria’s SEC) · since 2024
Other
RTGS (Real-Time Gross Settlement System)Nigeria’s RTGS, live since December 2006 as CIFTS (CBN Interbank Funds Transfer System), redeployed on a new platform on December 18, 2013, and upgraded in April 2023 with the S4 depository. It is the final settlement leg for NIBSS batches: a practitioner who finds “CIFTS” in an older contract is looking at this system.Central Bank of Nigeria · since 2006
RemitaNigerian payments and financial automation platform developed by SystemSpecs, explicitly aimed at government agencies as well as large companies and SMEs. Its frequently claimed role in the federal Treasury Single Account is not documented by the vendor or by any verifiable public source.SystemSpecs