In April 2024, a six-week customer onboarding freeze imposed by Nigeria’s Central Bank significantly slowed the demand for payment cards among two of the country’s largest fintechs, OPay and Moniepoint. According to point-of-sale agents and industry insiders, the inability to onboard new customers during this period reduced the appetite for cards, which are often issued as part of the account-opening process.
“A lot of people opening new accounts also want a card as it makes them feel fully financially included,” an OPay executive explained. With the freeze in place, both fintechs responded by cutting back on the distribution of cards through agency banking networks.
Since launching cards in 2021, OPay has distributed approximately 13 million cards, while Moniepoint has issued around 4 million, according to a source familiar with Verve, the card issuer for both companies. However, the rapid growth in card issuance has now slowed, leading some fintechs to deprioritize cards, which have traditionally served as a loss-leading strategy for customer acquisition.
Moniepoint, for example, reduced its card distribution to agents from 30 cards per pack to just five. These agents, who play a vital role in fulfilling card requests across multiple local governments, have seen demand decrease as customers shift toward bank transfers for payments.
Cards remain useful for online payments, but their adoption is waning as improved transfer speeds and broader acceptance of bank transfers by businesses make them less essential. According to an OPay executive, this trend was anticipated. “We were very aggressive when we launched cards in 2021. Naturally, the pace of growth two years ago is not the same now—it’s the law of diminishing returns.”
This decline in demand reflects both the growing maturity of the card market and a broader shift in customer preferences as digital banking services stabilize. As fintechs balance growth strategies, they are increasingly focusing on solutions that align with evolving customer behavior and cost-efficiency.
