L-R, CEO Verve International, Charles Ifedi, DCEO, Industry Vertical Market, Interswitch, Chinyere Don Okhuofu, CFO, Interswitch, Peter O’

Funsho Arogundade

Verve International, the leading African payment card brand, has launched a revolutionary mobile app, ‘Verve World’, which enables cardholders to store all their payment options and to carry out everyday transactions without physically using their cards.

This innovation was unveiled to stakeholders on Wednesday, 2 December at the Four Points by Sheraton, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Speaking at a stakeholder engagement event, Charles Ifedi, Chief Executive Officer, Verve International, said the “Verve World” app has been tailored specifically for the African market and is an example of how Verve International continues to push the boundaries of technological innovation to address local payment challenges.

“We continue to see growing demand from our cardholders for easy, secure and convenient payment methods, irrespective of the payment instrument being used. Therefore we designed the app to address the need for urgent access to cash without a card, through Verve Paycode, (a key feature in the APP) which can also be generated and sent to friends and family for cardless withdrawal at ATMs,” he said.

Ifedi stated further that Verve Paycode can also be generated via USSD channel, using any phone including feature phones, by simply dialling *322*8*amount#.

“We believe that the technology this app offers will revolutionize how we manage our money. Cardless transactions can be initiated at an ATM without inserting a card. This is done by pressing any button on ATMs enabled with ‘Quickteller Cardless,” he added.

The Verve International boss disclosed that Fidelity Bank, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Heritage Bank, Zenith bank, FCMB and GTBank have all upgraded their ATMs with this functionality. Also, ATMs belonging to UBA, Sterling Bank, Access Bank, Skye Bank, Unity Bank, Ecobank and WEMA Bank are being upgraded and would have the service available in a few weeks.

“As such, there are currently over 5,000 ATMs across Nigeria where Verve Paycode can be used, and this would rise to over 11,000 ATMs by the end of 2015, when the upgrades for the above listed banks would have been completed,” Ifedi stated.

The service is also being extended to enable Banks’ Mobile Banking and Internet Banking, as well as Mobile Money Operators and other stakeholders to leverage Paycode at ATMs and POS terminals.

Launched in 2009, Verve is the biggest payment card brand in Nigeria and is rapidly expanding issuance and acceptance across the African continent. Verve is currently issued in five African countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya and Gambia and accepted in 19 other countries. Verve is issued by 40 banks in Africa with more than 30 million payment tokens in circulation.