Mastercard and Interswitch bring Google Pay to Nigerian cardholders
Product launch · completedWednesday 28 October 2026
Mastercard, with Interswitch, has enabled eligible Mastercard cardholders in Nigeria to pay with Google Pay on Android devices. The launch extends contactless digital payment options for Nigerian consumers.
It widens the card-tokenisation payment rails available to Nigerian consumers through a major global network and a local switch.
Kacha Digital Financial Service has signed a five-year agreement with Mastercard to issue payment cards directly to its customers. The deal also enables card-issuing services for eligible financial institutions across the country.
Mastercard is deploying artificial intelligence and tokenisation to strengthen security across Ethiopia's digital payment ecosystem. The move supports Ethiopia's push to extend digital payments beyond cash, in a market where few adults transact digitally.
Nigeria-focused fintech OPay sold 16 million American depositary shares at $19 each, raising $300 million and valuing the company at about $4 billion. It rang the NYSE opening bell, but ThisDay reports that trading was temporarily held over an outstanding regulatory clarification in a foreign jurisdiction.
The 2026 Access to Financial Services in Nigeria survey finds 64.4% of adults use digital financial services. The financially excluded share fell to 21% from 26% in 2023.
UBA says it is the first to enable Google Pay for eligible Visa and Mastercard users. The move extends mobile wallet payments to its eligible card holders.
LemFi, a fintech serving over two million customers, is extending beyond international transfers into savings, credit and eSIM products. The move targets migrants' financing gaps.
Nigerian buy-now-pay-later startup Klump has shut down after five years, announced by co-founders Celestine Omin and Olufunbi Falayi in a farewell note on 25 October. The company had raised about $1.2 million and said it had declined an acquisition offer received earlier this year, citing difficulty securing lending capital and slow bank integrations.
