Verve International, an African payment card brand has
launched a revolutionary mobile app ‘Verve World’ which enables
cardholders to store all their payment options and to carry out everyday
transactions without using their cards.
During the unveiling ceremony, the chief executive officer of Verve
International, Charles Ifedi spoke exclusively with Naij.com the purpose
for introducing the verve worlds app and the challenges associated with
e commerce
in Nigeria.
Can you shed light on the products launched today and the purpose?
Today, Verve launched two products. The first product is Verve world
app which has various functionalities. The main function is the ability
to add many cards into the app, add your bank accounts and also prepaid
cards into the account. Once you add those things to the app, you can
now manage those cards and bank accounts from one single place instead
of carrying multiple apps from multiple banks. The vision is to have one
app that put all these together so you can have your airtime,
documentation and other functionalities in one app. But most importantly
we introduce a feature called pay code. What we’ve done with the pay
code is that we’ve introduced a product whereby you can generate a code
and withdraw money from an ATM without a card and you can take same pay
code to a POS without a card and do a transactions and that is the main
feature we’ve done with the verve app.
The second thing we’ve done is contactless card. That is, you can go
to an ATM or POS and insert a card . We introduce a service that is a
lot faster that you can just tap at the point of sale and the
transaction goes through immediately. That’s what the contactless card
does and debit your account without entering a pin for the transaction;
you do quicker and better transactions.
How can the pay code be assessed by whoever wants to do a transaction via the app?
You can asses Pay code in two ways. It can be assessed first through
the verve world app. You select the card you want to use and you can
generate a pay code. Once you generate the pay code, you can send it to
your friend or use the pay code yourself. Another way is if you don’t
have smart phone or internet is to dial, *323*8* the amount to withdraw
then #, generate a pay code for you and you can take that pay code to an
ATM . When you get to ATM, you select quick teller cardless and you
enter the pay code and the amount. It will validate both the pay code
and amount, then a PIN then it will give you cash from the account.
Some Nigerians might like to switch to cardless transactions
since it is faster and easier but they are not aware of these
renovations. How do you intend to improve the level of awareness?
The public awareness has started from today. We have the media and
the banks to propagate the message because they are very key in selling
the idea to their customers . We will also advertise the product and we
plan to have an interesting promo in January 2016.
Do you feel the renovation is sustainable given all the internet hitches and other challenges?
We started verve card six years ago and six years on, we are still
here. We see this as an enhancement to device series of services. We
would market it and we would continue to improve on the services. We
would also sell it continuously to our customers so it’s going to be
here for a long time.
What is the idea for introducing Verve world flagship programme?
All through the year, Verve has its flagship product Verve world.
The idea is you spend via your card at certain places JUMIA, KONGA and
others and get instant five per cent discount. All through the year, we
focus on giving our card holders more which is our main obligation to
satify our customers the more. We would continue to sustain this through
out the festive period and even increase it the reward so that people
can enjoy the more.
What are the challenges facing e commerce or online services in the country?
Online trading in Nigeria is still eveolving. The real online
transaction started in Nigeria in 2010 and there were still a lot of
aparty. People still do not trust enough. Some still do not believe
that they will order and get it. What people like most about on live
service commerce is buying airline ticket; print airline ticket and fly.
Those who don’t like paying bills get their PIN and print instantly.
But the idea of e commerce is not fully embraced where people don’t yet
trust the system. People don’t believe yet that if they want a blue shoe
and they wouldn’t get a light blue shoe. If they want a black Ipad they
wouldn’t get white I pad, You promise to deleiver in one or two days
and is taking more days for the goods to be delivered so e commerce has
really focused on pay on delivery. Which is I’ll pay when I get the
goods. Until more trust is created, that people can pay for something
and get exact size, colour of the product, we would really continue to
use the pay on delivery service which is not what we want e commerce to
really achieve.
No comments:
Post a Comment