Most debit cards in Nigeria are contactless-enabled, but trust issues and lack of awareness continue to hold back the adoption of over 70 million of such cards.
This was the central theme of conversations at BusinessDay’s Future of Payment Conference 2025. Visa, Verve, and Mastercard dominate Nigeria’s debit card market. In 2024, Verve said it had issued 70 million cards in the country.
According to Statista, Mastercard was the most popular for credit and debit cards in Nigeria, and about 27 percent of cardholders in the country had a Vis
