Verve Card is issued by Interswitch, a leading pan-African payment gateway and processor.

Having started in 2002, Interswitch has since evolved from being a Nigerian operation and now has a strong presence in Kenya, Uganda (both in East Africa), and The Gambia.

Verve Card is one of the products of Interswitch. It is issued by banks in Nigeria who are enrolled to Interswitch’s system. It competes favourably with Visa and Mastercard in Nigeria, for market dominance.

They are chip + PIN cards and usually cone with 18 digits printed on the cards instead of the familiar 16 digits on Mastercard and Visa.

According to data on Interswitch’s website, there are over 15 million Verve cards in circulation in Nigeria alone. The cards have access to over 100,000 Point Of Sale (POS) Terminals, over 11,000 Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and over 1,000 e-commerce merchants.

They are typically issued by the supported banks as debit cards, prepaid cards or payment cards. They also support merchant loyalty schemes – enabling merchants to offer exclusive rewards to their customers.

Through a partnership with Discover Financial Services, Verve cards can make use of ATMs and POS terminals across 185 on the Discover network while Discover cards can work on Interswitch supported terminals and ATMs in Nigeria.

Web4Africa is a leading merchant accepting Verve Cards for Domain Names, Web Hosting, Virtual Servers, Dedicated Servers and all other services on offer.

How Do I Pay with my Verve Card?

Look for online merchants and regular physical stores that display the Verve logo. The cards are accepted by thousands of merchants online and offline, across Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda.

What is the difference between Verve Card and Mastercard?

• they are powered by different financial institutions. Thus, they are not interoperable.
• verve cards have 18 digits while Mastercard cards have 16 digits.
• their global acceptance varies wildly.

Is Verve a Visa card?

No. Verve and Visa are completely separate, independent and not connected in any way. They do not have much in common aside from both being financial card brands.

Web4Africa now accepts InterSwitch Verve and Naira Mastercards from Nigeria

The following was published on 21st December 2010:

Web4Africa, a leading web hosting company in West Africa, has officially joined the Interswitch merchant network. After going through the rigorous certification process, Web4Africa is now approved to accept Interswitch Verve and Naira Mastercard cards over the Internet for services it offers.

Interswitch Verve and Naira Mastercard cardholders in Nigeria can now pay Web4Africa online for domain name services, web design, and web hosting services.

What is Verve? From interswitchng.com:

Verve is your new InterSwitch (ATM) card now with Chip and PIN.
Verve is the new name of more secure, convenient InterSwitch (ATM) card that makes transactions safer and adds convenience to everyday life. Verve is issued by your bank and powered by InterSwitch.

Verve’s is the first and only chip accepted on all available payment channels in Nigeria. Using the Interswitch network, card holders can perform payment transactions on over 12,000 Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminals, over 7,000 Automated Teller Machines (ATM), and on web merchant sites, mobile phones as well as kiosks and much more!

16 banks issue Interswitch Verve cards in Nigeria: First Bank, Intercontinental Bank, ETB, Stanbic IBTC, Oceanic Bank, Unity Bank, Sterling Bank, Spring Bank. Others are Wema Bank, Bank PHB, FCMB, Afribank, Fidelity Bank, Skye Bank, Ecobank and Finbank. According to ITRealms Online, these 16 banks have issued over 10 million Verve cards to their customers.

GTBank issues Naira Mastercards in Nigeria.

Buying web services from Web4Africa is now much more convenient, Interswitch Verve and Naira Mastercard cardholders can now pay online for their services without having to drive through traffic to get to the bank nor join lengthy bank queues.