Valucard, Interswitch in Battle for Supremacy | Vanguard News
Valucard, Interswitch in Battle for Supremacy - Finance Jul 6, 2009 By Babajide Komolafe
The wave of competition caught up with the two card giants in Nigeria last week as they make claims of superiority over each others products, Babajide Komolafe writes
The market was taken by surprise last week when the two card giants, Valucard and Interswitch, traded claims of authenticity of their cards opening in what could be better described as an exercise in perfect de-marketing.
The whole exercise was to enable one of them gain an upper hand in an intense competition for the market for chip and PIN, Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) compliant payment cards in the country.
Valucard had last week dismissed Interswitch’s Verve cards claim to be EMV compliant saying its Visa and VPay cards are the only EMV compliant cards in the country. Interswitch in a swift reaction said Valucard claims is a lie and unnecessary de-marketing. It said the truth is that its Verve card is an EMV compliant card with more features than any other in the world. Interestingly both Valucard and Interswitch are owned by consortium of banks with some banks belonging to both consortia.
EMV is an international e-payment standard developed by Europay, MasterCard and Visa to maximize e-payment security by replacing the current and fraud prone magnetic stripe cards with EMV Chip and PIN cards Chip (EMV).
It represents the latest in payment card technology. Unlike the magnetic strip card that can be cloned by fraudsters, chip and PIN (EMV) cards cannot be cloned as a result it is considered safer and more secure.
Against this background the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) directed banks to stop issuing magnetic strip cards and migrate to chip and PIN (EMV) cards on or before April 30th this year.
Consequently, last year Interswitch Nigeria Limited, the sole switching company to Nigerian banks with the largest payment cards issued on its Nigeria Debit Card Scheme, developed and introduced Verve cards which is a chip and PIN (EMV) compliant card. The card was introduced to replace the 28 million magnetic strip cards on its network.
Already about six million Verve cards have been issued while 12 banks have ordered for Verve cards. The banks are Intercontinental Bank, Nigeria International Bank, Skye Bank, Bank PHB, Oceanic Bank, Ecobank, First City Monumental Bank (FCMB), First Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Unity Bank, Zenith Bank and United Bank for Africa (UBA).
Valucard however was the first to introduce EMV compliant cards. In 2004 following its partnership with Visa International, the company introduced Visa and VPay cards which are EMV compliant. The company in a statement last week however warned that the banking public should disregard any payment card claiming to be EMV compliant.
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