Nigeria’s digital financial infrastructure is facing a major disruption as a coalition of electronic payment operators threatened to completely halt the processing, acceptance, and switching of all Verve card transactions across the country.
The ultimatum was made public in a directive issued by the group’s Communications Consultant, Yomi Idowu. The association—which represents the backbone of the country’s transactional infrastructure, including CBN-licensed payment processors, acquirers, and switches—warned that a total suspension is imminent unless the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) step in immediately.
The Anti-Competition Allegations
At the heart of the crisis is a formal petition accusing both Interswitch and its card subsidiary, Verve International, of violating antitrust laws and central bank guidelines. The coalition’s grievances center on three major structural claims:
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Monopolistic Processing: The group alleges that Interswitch and Verve enforce an airtight, exclusive monopoly over how domestic card transactions are routed and processed.
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Regulatory Price-Gauging: The tech giants are accused of abusing their dominant market position by imposing transaction fees that cross the legal ceilings established by the CBN.
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Unauthorized Settlement Deductions: The petition claims that arbitrary, unapproved deductions are being stripped directly from the settlement accounts of independent processing institutions.
The association points out a glaring double standard in the industry, noting that while competing global card schemes successfully phased out exclusivity clauses to match Nigeria’s open-market regulations, Interswitch and Verve have allegedly maintained their restrictive ecosystems.
The Economic Stake
The threat comes after years of heavy capital expenditure by independent operators who built out the point-of-sale (POS) and digital banking networks that fueled the domestic growth of Verve cards. According to the coalition, these investments were made entirely on their own dime without external subsidies, making the current financial squeeze and lopsided operating field completely unsustainable.
Implications for the Real Economy
If the dispute remains unresolved and operators pull the plug on the network, the macroeconomic fallout will be immediate. Millions of consumers, commercial merchants, and thousands of neighborhood micro-enterprises and SMEs that rely entirely on POS terminals for daily sales would see their Verve cards declined.
As digital payment stakeholders await definitive policy statements from the CBN and the FCCPC, this escalating standoff highlights the urgent need for transparent transaction pricing and stricter antitrust enforcement within Africa’s largest fintech landscape.
