News Highlights:
- PalmPay unveiled its new Debit Card and outlined bold steps to make digital payments easier and more rewarding across Africa.
- CMO Sofia Zab revealed how PalmPay tackled reliability and cost challenges to boost cashless adoption in Nigeria.
At the recent Tech Unite Africa 2025 conference held in Lagos, PalmPay unveiled its newest innovation—the PalmPay Debit Card. During the event, Chief Marketing Officer Sofia Zab offered valuable insights on how to accelerate Africa’s transition from cash to digital payments.
Speaking during a panel discussion, Sofia Zab highlighted two major challenges PalmPay faced when entering the Nigerian market: reliability and cost, and explained that back in 2019, widespread transaction failures and high fees discouraged many consumers and merchants in Nigeria from embracing digital payments.
She said that to overcome these challenges, PalmPay developed a robust infrastructure ensuring a 99.95% transaction success rate and pioneered a user-friendly model with zero rated bank transfers, fee-free bill payments and cashback rewards.
“Once users experience the benefits, they don’t want to return to cash,” Zab stated. “The key to shifting consumer behaviour is making digital payments more convenient, more rewarding, and less stressful than using cash.
“As consumers adopted cashless payments, they began seeking out merchants that would accept payment with transfer, driving digitisation in retail payments organically,” she said..
Zab also emphasized PalmPay’s inclusive strategy for fostering a cashless ecosystem, particularly in regions with unstable internet connectivity. In addition to its smartphone app, PalmPay enables transactions through a widespread network of mobile money agents across Nigeria.
These agents are equipped with multiple devices and SIM cards from different network providers, allowing them to complete transactions on behalf of users whenever a specific network is down.
In 2024, PalmPay went a step further by introducing a USSD code (*861#) for users without data access, and with the new PalmPay Debit Card, its customers now have another access point and can withdraw cash from ATMs or point-of-sale terminals when digital transactions are not feasible.
“For us, the key is about meeting people where they are, rather than waiting for the perfect infrastructure to arrive,” Zab emphasized.
In alignment with its mission to drive financial access, PalmPay unveiled the PalmPay Debit Card at the conference.
Developed in partnership with Verve, Africa’s largest domestic card scheme, the card offers zero maintenance fees, easy in-app application with nationwide delivery, and integration into PalmPay’s full suite of financial services – including cashback, merchant rewards, and high-yield savings, an initiative that marks a significant milestone in PalmPay’s evolution into a comprehensive digital banking platform.
With over 35 million users on its smartphone app and a MSME network of 1.1 million agents and merchants across Nigeria, PalmPay continues to build one of the continent’s most dynamic fintech ecosystems, dedicated to redefining digital banking to be more personalised, comprehensive, and accessible to everyone.
