e-Payment card users to number over 10 million

The Director, Payment and Business Expansion, Interswitch, Mr. Charles Ifedi has said the Central Bank of Nigerias cashless policy is pushing Automated Teller Machines users over the 10 million mark.Ifedi, in a statement on Friday, said the second edition of the Verve National Consumer promo was also contributing to the uptake of debit cards in the country.He explained that the ongoing promo, which was meant to encourage consumers to open bank accounts and obtain Verve cards, would play a major role in increasing the ATM cards in circulation in the country.Ifedi noted that the introduction of the cashless society policy by the CBN was meant to encourage bank customers to pick up Verve cards as soon as they opened their bank accounts. He said, "Verve promo would assist the CBN policy, as the promo is encouraging non-cardholders to embrace card usage while urging the existing cardholders to use the card more for payment of goods and services across several touch points such as ATM and Point of Sales terminals."The CBN has set in motion steps to encourage the banking public to use electronic payment solutions such as ATMs, PoS terminals, web banking, telephone banking and mobile money transfer to reduce cash in circulation. The first phase of the policy will commence in Lagos in January 2012.Ifedi said Interswitch was working with the banks to push ATM card usage in the country through the Verve promo. This, he said, would reward cardholders who renew their cards or use the same on ATMs, PoS, web and mobile across the country. According to him, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians are registering at the bank branches to obtain Verve cards on a daily basis.Aside from giving the cardholders the opportunity to participate in the promo, Ifedi said using the Verve cards came with certain benefits part of which was to protect the cardholders from any form of electronic fraud."Verve is the only card that gives cardholders more value," he said.Speaking on what consumers stand to benefit from participating in the promo, Ifedi said, "There are over 800,000 gift items to be won by cardholders. The items include generators, 32" LCD televisions, iPads, BlackBerry smartphones, deep freezers and instant items such as branded T-shirts, MP3 (players), flash drives and more."
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