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Verve, one of the leading payment technology and card business inAfrica, last week in New York, launched the Verve Global Card, which allows cardholders to transact business in more than 190 countries and territories. In this interview, the Managing Direc
For those that already have the Verve Classic Card, what does this new Verve Global Card mean to them?
First thing, let’s talk about the Verve Classic Card. The Classic Verve Card is a card that works in Nigeria today. Now, bank issue those cards to customers with the promise that those cards with the promise that it will not work abroad. Now, when cards go international, sometimes you face all sorts of challenges such as fraud, etc. The way we designed the Verve Classic Card, we are in control of the card in Nigeria; we know the Nigerian environment and so we know how to deal with the issue of protecting it from fraud and others. If somebody says he or she has a card that works in Nigeria , it wouldn’t be nice if one day he hears that, that card was used abroad to commit fraud. That would amount to jeopardy because the man doesn’t have a lot of money, also he has never gone to an Embassy to ask for visa to travel abroad and thirdly, he didn’t go to the airport, but suddenly you see that your card has been used for international transactions. You can never accept it. So, we have left Verve Classic Cards as cards that work in Nigeria and even though those cards can work abroad too, for now we are going to limit it to ATMs. Why? That is because at an ATM, you must enter your chip, your card and put your pin. So, it is likely to be more secured. For the Verve Global Card, we are targeting another segment of customers. These are those we call the affluent and mass-affluent and people who travel regularly abroad. So, we need to be able to use our card abroad. This is a different card. In the case of Verve Global, it can work on point of sale ( PoS), for merchant operations and you can also use it at an ATM.
What are the benefits of the Verve Global Card?
Let’s look at it from three perspectives: People have been telling Interswitch and Verve that they like our products as well as the way we have priced it, but that they want something that can also work internationally? That was the first question. The second was from the banks who told us that they wanted a card that is easy understand so that they would know how to target their customers and of course the third one was Interswitch that has a vision to not only remain in Nigeria, but to go Pan-African and ultimately international. So, if we are going to achieve that, we need to create a product such that as our customers move around, they would be able to carry out transactions seamlessly. I will give you an example, we have offices in Kenya, I should be able to go to Kenya and use my card, because the card is linked to my account in Nigeria. So, those are the few things. Of course, if you look at Verve Global, there are a lot of interesting things we are doing around it, that is why the partnership with Discover, is very important. There are special deals that they have that we would bring to bear. So, those are some of things we are looking at and as soon as we get back to Nigeria, we are going to begin to educate Nigerians and basically show them all the additional benefits that we have put around card.
Charges is always a concern for cardholders, are there additional charges attached to this Verve Global Card?
I can tell you straight away that it is not supposed to be more expensive than any other card. We understand our people very well, so you need to put a card that the pricing won’t be an issue. We haven’t finalised the pricing, but I can talk to you about the pricing principles. The philosophy is that it should be a card that is cheap and cheerful, a card that has lots of benefits and loyalty, a card that we live on and one that you will not want to leave behind because of all the benefits. You know benefits vary from person to person. What to you is a benefit, the other person may not see it that way. Part of what we are doing is to look at all our customers and to begin to determine the kind of benefits we need to design for each category of customers.
How will you access Nigeria’s financial inclusion journey?
I think we have come a long way. I don’t think collectively we would say we have achieved what we want to achieve. It is a journey and part of that journey is to learn along the way. There are few things we have done very well and there are some we have not done very well. And so, what we usually do from time to time is to go back and re- tweak the strategy. So, we target it. For instance, if you say you want to do something that 100 people would like, maybe at the end of the day 50 would like it, that means there are still 50 people you have not talked to. So, you have to ask that other 50 persons why they didn’t behave like the other 50. So, when you get insights about the remaining 50, you have to go and modify the products and give a new solution. Maybe this time around, an additional 30 persons would take the product, but you still need to go back to the remaining 20 because no two human beings are exactly the same. Even when you design products, not everybody would want to use it the same way. But overall, I think there has been lots of improvement and new policies are coming out from the CBN. You have heard about the Payment Service Banks ( PSBs), which is targeted at the telcos because of the distributions that they have. All again, these are the things that the central bank is tweaking to ensure that more people get involved so that it can achieve the financial inclusion targets we are looking at.
So, what are the barriers to achieving the targets set by the CBN in terms of financial inclusion?
I will give you an example. Firstly, when you say you want someone to be financially included, there is a fundamental assumption you have made, which is that he has money that he wants to bring on-board. But the truth is that most people don’t have this money. So, for some people, financial inclusion is totally unnecessary. For some others, it is in and out – as money is coming in, it is going out, so why should I save it. So, what that basically means is that the kind of transaction you need to do for them to be financially included should be an in and out kind of transactions, because they don’t have enough money to save. I will give you an example: there are people that every day they would leave their houses to collect items from distributors, go to the roadside to sell them, like the hawkers in traffic. Those guys live from hand to mouth. If you tell them to bank their money, you would be wasting your time because their bank is in their pocket. The only way they would even listen to you is if you can create a product that looks at what they do. For instance, they always have issues with ‘change’ when someone buys from them in the traffic, that is