Industry Technology Headquarters Lagos | Founded 2002, Lagos, Nigeria Type of business Private | |
Key people Mitchell Elegbe (Group Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer)
Akeem Lawal, Divisional CEO, Switching & Processing Group
Charles Ifedi, Divisional CEO, Consumer Segments & Verve International Website www.interswitchgroup.com Subsidiaries Interswitch East Africa (U) Limited, Paynet Kenya Limited, VANSO International Corporation Profiles | ||
Interswitch story
Interswitch is a payment processing company headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria.
Contents
Paynet to interswitch
History
Interswitch was founded in 2002 by Mitchell Elegbe.
In 2010 two thirds of the company was sold to a consortium led by Helios Investment Partners. In 2011 Interswitch took a 60 per cent stake in Bankom in Uganda.
In 2013 Interswitch entered into an agreement for payment processing with Discover Financial Services.
In September 2014 the company acquired a majority shareholding in Paynet Group, an East-African payments provider.
In 2015 Interswitch launched a $10m investment fund for African start-ups in the payments sector.
Operations and subsidiaries
Interswitch uses a ‘switching' infrastructure to connect the different banks in Nigeria and provides technology for ATM cards. The company has over 11,000 ATMs on its network.
Interswitch is the owner of Verve, Nigeria’s most used payment card, accounting for 18 million of the 25 million cards in circulation in the country.
Interswitch also owns Quickteller, an online payments platform; Retailpay, a mobile business management platform; and Smartgov, an identity management and e-payment infrastructure for state governments.
Interswitch has also very recently acquired VANSO, a mobile-focused technology provider to banks. This new acquisition will result in VANSO’s mobile banking, SMS and security business lines being fully integrated into Interswitch’s digital commerce and technology operations in Nigeria, and across the Africa.