Interswitch Group’s payment card brand, Verve International, is advancing beyond contactless cards to integrate its payment credentials directly into smartphones, wearables, and emerging autonomous agent systems.

The move follows a partnership announced this week involving Interswitch, Mastercard, and five major Nigerian lenders: Guaranty Trust Bank, Wema Bank, Providus Bank, Zenith Bank, and FirstBank — to standardise tap-to-pay infrastructure across the country.

Speaking at the Moonshot tech conference in Lagos, Verve International Managing Director Vincent Ogbunude framed the expansion as a direct push to eliminate transaction friction and reduce checkout queues.

“Friction is the enemy,” Ogbunude said during a presentation on Thursday. “We have already started the journey of allowing you to link your payment credentials to your wearables and your phone. Everywhere that experience has shown up in the world, it catches fire. We expect it to not be any different in Nigeria.”

Verve, which claims a network of more than 130 million cardholders, outlined a five-phase roadmap for its contactless ecosystem.

Phase 1 deals with In-store tap-to-pay card transactions. The second phase will involve integration with wearables and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. One-click online checkout options will dominate the third. Automated recurring billing will be the fourth and integration with AI-driven “agentic” payment systems will be the fifth.

The initiative underscores a broader shift across African fintech away from physical plastic toward mobile-first payment rails. According to Ogbunude, local consumer behavior has rapidly evolved across five distinct eras; transitioning from cash withdrawals at ATMs to web portals like Quickteller, point-of-sale terminals, domestic card schemes, and now smartphone-bound credentials.

Verve projects that removing manual entry requirements for online and offline purchases will boost commerce throughput and support broader industrialization goals across West Africa’s largest economy.