12 Banks in Kenya sign to use Verve Card (The first African card that competes with Visa and MasterCard)
Interswitch Group has announced that 12 Banks in Kenya have signed with Verve International. Verve International is the company’s payment solution which allows customers to make payments across the lenders’ network in over 3,000 point of sale terminals, 1,300 ATMs and 12,000 agency banking outlets.
Verve International is the largest card brand in Nigeria. Verve is accepted in 19 African countries, issued by 40 banks and has more than 32 million digital payment tokens and cards in circulation. On the other hand, Verve is the first African card that competes with Visa and MasterCard.
The Banks include;
- KCB Group
- Family Bank
- Sidian Bank
- Prime Bank
- Stanbic
- UBA
- Credit Bank
- GT Bank
- DTB
- NBK
- Faulu
- NIC
This network links together channels namely; Mobile, Merchants, ATMs and Agents, from the leading Kenyan banks and is operated by Verve’s parent company, Interswitch Group.
“Kenyan consumers are ready for a converged payment experience regionally that brings together the benefits of a bank card with the latest payment technologies in mobile and web. Through the largest acquired networks in the region, we will provide thousands of locations for Verve customers to transact securely and efficiently.”
-Paul Ndichu, CEO of Interswitch East Africa
Interswitch is a Nigeria-based, transaction switching and electronic payments processing company. It was founded in 2002. Interswitch was majority acquired by Helios Investment Partners for $96 million in 2011. Helios are best known in Kenya for their large investments in Equity Bank, Wananchi Online and Telkom Kenya.
Interswitch itself entered Kenya by buying 85% of Kenya’s Paynet Holdings in 2014. Paynet started in Kenya in 2003 and is known for a number of innovations including building PesaPoint network of ATMs and agents in Kenya, linking ATMs with M-Pesa and driving the adoption of EMV chip cards.
