Nigeria already has tap-to-pay cards and terminals. Getting people to use them is the next step
Contactless payments arrived in 2015, and Google Pay's October launch has renewed interest, but adoption depends on banks, merchants and shoppers.
Lagos — Some Nigerian bank cards can already pay with a single tap, TechCabal found when it tested one at a local point-of-sale (PoS) agent. Holding an NFC-enabled Verve debit card issued through ALAT, Wema Bank's digital platform, near the terminal, the reporter entered a PIN and withdrew ₦1,500 without inserting the card.
Look for the waves
Contactless cards and terminals carry a small symbol of four curved lines, often mistaken for a Wi-Fi logo. It means the card or machine uses Near Field Communication (NFC), which lets devices exchange data when held close together.
Not new, but newly relevant
Contactless payments are not new in Nigeria. Unified Payments introduced an NFC solution in 2015, and in 2022 Mastercard, Providus Bank, Thales and Interswitch launched tap-to-pay for smartphones and wearables. Google Pay's entry into the market in October 2026 and a growing number of local fintech products have renewed attention on the technology.
These could let shoppers pay with phones instead of cards, and let merchants turn NFC-enabled phones into payment terminals. But wider use, TechCabal concluded, depends on whether banks, merchants and consumers make it work in everyday transactions.
Source: TechCabal, 12 November 2026.
