Verve, Nigeria\u2019s largest card scheme, plans to let customers pay by tapping their phones and, eventually, to let AI assistants make payments on their behalf, its chief executive, Vincent Ogbunude, said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the Big Tech and Enterprise Stage at Moonshot by TechCabal on 29 October, Ogbunude described the plans as the next step in removing friction from payments. \u201cThe greatest cost in payments is friction,\u201d he said. Every extra step, from typing an account number to retrying a failed transfer, adds cost, he argued.<\/p>\n
The plans build on a push Verve began last year. TechCabal reported<\/a> in December that Verve had passed 100 million cards and was moving into contactless payments and tokenisation, which replaces card details with a one-time code. Verve now has 130 million cards, Ogbunude said.<\/p>\n Tap-to-pay on phones would let customers pay with a device they already carry, without a physical card. Agentic payments go further: an AI assistant, acting on a customer\u2019s instructions, would find and complete a purchase without the customer handling each step.\u00a0<\/p>\n