PalmPay Unveils Debit Card in Nigeria, Expanding Its Digital Banking Ecosystem

PalmPay, a leading digital bank and fintech platform focused on emerging markets, has launched the PalmPay Debit Card in Nigeria in partnership with Verve, Africa’s largest domestic card scheme.

The launch of its debit card represents a key milestone in PalmPay’s evolution – from a mobile wallet known for it’s fee-free transfers and cashback rewards into a full-service digital banking platform offering an integrated ecosystem for payments, savings, credit, insurance, and now, card access.

The new PalmPay Debit Card brings advanced features such as savings yield on deposits and merchant rewards within reach for mass market users in Nigeria. With zero maintenance fees, a simple in-app application process, and nationwide delivery, PalmPay aims to convert millions of its 35 million users to become cardholders this year. The card is accepted at all merchants in the Verve network, and supports both debit and contactless transactions.


"This launch is another step forward in our mission to deliver accessible, reliable and rewarding financial services. With the PalmPay Debit Card, we are expanding our ecosystem and enabling our users to pay and earn rewards at even more touch points, including across offline and online commerce. And for merchants, this opens up new opportunities to reach millions of Nigerian digital consumers and collaborate with us to build reward-driven experiences that boost loyalty and sales."

– Sofia Zab, Chief Marketing Officer, PalmPay

Alongside the standard debit card, PalmPay is also rolling out PalmPay Premium, a new reward scheme and card designed for high-volume users. It offers enhanced perks such as priority support, advanced financial tools, and exclusive merchant benefits.

With over 35 million users and a growing network of 1.1 million agents and merchants in Nigeria – and operations in Tanzania, Ghana, and Bangladesh – PalmPay is building a next-generation financial ecosystem designed to empower consumers and businesses in emerging markets. PalmPay processes up to 15 million transactions daily, underscoring the scale and reliability of its platform.

In addition to its digital banking services, PalmPay provides a suite of B2B offerings for local MSMEs and international merchants, including:

. Smart POS terminals and a business app
. Payment orchestration and checkout solutions
. Bulk payment tools via a self-service merchant portal
. APIs for embedding and reselling PalmPay’s services
. Direct integration of services into the PalmPay consumer and business apps


"At PalmPay, we believe that building a thriving digital economy requires collaboration. From lending and insurance providers to card schemes like Verve, our ecosystem is powered by strategic partnerships. The launch of our debit card is another example of how we are combining cutting-edge technology with our partner strengths to deliver inclusive financial services at scale – and in doing so we empower businesses targeting Africa to grow faster, reach more customers and unlock more revenue streams."

– Jiapei Yan, Chief Commercial Officer, PalmPay


"We are proud to partner with PalmPay on this important milestone. Our alliance reflects our shared mission of accelerating financial inclusion and delivering payment innovation that meets the needs of African consumers."

– Vincent Ogbunude, Managing Director of Verve International

From zero-fee transfers and high-yield savings to instant credit, insurance, and now cards, PalmPay is redefining what digital banking in emerging markets can look like – personalised, comprehensive, and accessible to everyone.

As international businesses seek entry into Africa’s dynamic digital economy, PalmPay offers a trusted platform with the infrastructure, user base, and reach to help them scale.

By Aayushya Ranjan, TechAfrica

Nigeria affected by Trump sweeping tariffs

The United States President, Donald Trump, Wednesday enacted sweeping new tariffs in a move that could escalate trade tensions globally at what he tagged “liberation day”.

Trump said the U.S. will implement “reciprocal tariffs” on all countries of “approximately half” of what they charge us.

Among the countries slammed with reciprocal tariff is Nigeria. Under the tariff plan, Nigerian exports will be charged 14 per cent tariff as against the 27 per cent charged by the Federal Government.

Last year, Nigeria exported goods worth N931 billion to the United States, with crude oil forming the bulk of the goods. It, however, imported N1.05 trillion worth of goods from the U.S. in the same period.

Bringing out a chart to show the audience, he showed that China “charges” the U.S. a tariff of 67%, so the United States will charge China a 34% tariff.

The chart also showed that the United States will charge the European Union a 20% tariff, Vietnam a 46% tariff, Taiwan 32%, Japan 24%, India 26%, South Korea 25%, Thailand 36%, Cambodia 49% and more.

Trump concluded his “make America wealthy again” event in the White House Rose Garden by signing two executive orders. The first closes “the de minimus loophole” on China, which has allowed the country to export cheap goods to the United States without paying taxes and import duties.

The second implements the president’s “reciprocal tariffs”, which the president explained includes a 25% tariff on all imported cars and 10% to 49% tariffs on all goods imported from abroad.

Trump said the tariffs he announced would generate “$6 trillion in investments” but experts explain that tariffs are actually paid for by American businesses and consumers. That would make it the largest “tax hike” in U.S. history.

The European Union, which is facing 20% tariffs on all exports to the U.S., will not react until today when the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will make a statement.

By Dennis Erezi, The Guardian

Video - Unilever Nigeria reports 79 percent profit surge in 2024

The company says growth in its food and personal care segments helped fuel the profits. However, Unilever remains cautious about macroeconomic risks, citing volatile oil prices, forex shortages, and unfavorable fiscal policies.

CGTN

AZN secures exclusive rights to stream Nigeria’s Dambe sport

African Warriors Fighting Championship (AWFC) has secured an exclusive partnership with DAZN, the London-based sports streaming service, to bring Dambe, Nigeria’s centuries-old form of boxing, to a global audience. Through this collaboration, DAZN becomes the official global streaming partner for the Dambe World Series, a five-event tournament where Nigeria’s top fighters take on international contenders.

It marks a major step in the globalisation of Dambe, a combat sport with roots in West African warrior traditions. While Dambe has already gained traction online—attracting over 15 million YouTube views via AWFC’s broadcasts—DAZN’s global reach could elevate its profile much like UFC did for mixed martial arts. In 2023, AWFC teamed up with Stake, the online casino known for sponsoring global sports like football and Formula One, marking Dambe’s first international partnership.

“Dambe is a sport with deep cultural roots and immense athletic appeal,” said Maxwell Kalu, founder of AWFC. “Partnering with DAZN allows us to introduce it to a global fanbase. We are confident that 2025 will be the year Dambe captures the attention of fans worldwide.”

Founded in 2018, AWFC promotes and organises professional Dambe events to develop the sport’s global presence. Its 2024 “King of Dambe” tournament featured the sport’s first European competitor. The upcoming Dambe World Series, which kicks off in June 2025, will build on this momentum.

This partnership could also be a turning point for Dambe’s commercial viability. Beyond streaming, AWFC aims to attract sponsorship deals, merchandising opportunities, and a broader international fanbase. If successful, Dambe could follow in the footsteps of other combat sports, evolving from a regional tradition into a globally recognised competition with mainstream appeal.

“Audience attention for global combat sports has seen a huge rise,” said Kalu. “It speaks to consumer trends where people prefer to watch bite-sized content. In terms of challenges for Dambe, it’s just raising awareness. Dambe is a sport that had a vibrant ecosystem before anybody discovered it, but it was very much a quiet sport. We are raising the production standards where necessary.”

AWFC stages fights across Nigeria through a network of partner arenas, drawing paying spectators from various parts of the country. The matches are also streamed online, attracting viewers from the US and Brazil—two regions with dedicated Dambe followings, according to Kalu.

DAZN, often referred to as the “Netflix of Sport,” boasts 20 million paying subscribers across 200+ countries and holds streaming rights to major sports, including boxing, football, and the NFL. It flows well, but it could be slightly smoother. In 2023, the company reported $2.8 billion in revenue, with backing from investors, including billionaire Sir Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries.

By securing exclusive broadcasting rights to Dambe’s biggest events, DAZN is betting on the sport’s crossover appeal. For AWFC, the deal provides a crucial platform to showcase the best of Nigerian combat sports on the world stage.

By Emmanuel Nwosu, techcabal

Freed Binance exec Tigran Gambaryan says he ‘almost died twice’ in Nigeria

“It was supposed to be a two-day trip.”

It wasn’t.

On Tuesday, Tigran Gambaryan, a onetime federal agent and the head of Binance’s financial crimes unit, shared an account of his eight-month ordeal in Nigeria’s legal system.

Locked up on charges he engaged in money laundering, Gambaryan suffered from malaria, pneumonia, and a herniated disc in his back. At one point he was so ill he collapsed in a courtroom in Abuja, the African nation’s capital.

“I almost died twice,” he told his audience at Chainalysis’ Links 2025 conference in New York.

Humour and stoicism

Now, almost six months after his release, Gambaryan recounted the Kafkaesque nightmare with a mix of humour and stoicism.

Just two days after arriving in Abuja last February to talk to Nigerian officials about allegations Binance was operating in the nation illegally, Gambaryan and his colleague, Nadeem Anjarwalla, were detained in a government “guest house.”

There was barbed wire all around the residence, except at the five-foot fence in the front, which led onto a city street.

“It was kind of a ridiculous situation,” he said. “It would have been as easy as just hopping a fence and getting an Uber.

“They had military guards that were stationed at the front of the gate, but they were always asleep,” he continued to laughs from the audience.

As it happened, Anjarwalla didn’t stay long.

‘I thought he was just having another panic attack.’— Tigran Gambaryan, Binance

On March 22, 2024, Anjarwalla, a British lawyer who was Binance’s regional manager based in Nairobi, asked his guards to allow him to attend a prayer service at a mosque in observance of Ramadan.

In Gambaryan’s telling, Anjarwalla returned from the mosque and said he’d go upstairs to sleep.

Dark house

Gambaryan spent the day on the phone with US officials. At night, he decided to check on his colleague.

The house was dark, Gambaryan recalled, because the staff were embezzling money meant to pay for the electricity.

In Anjarwalla’s upstairs bedroom, Gambaryan found one of his colleague’s feet poking out from under the bedsheets.

“He had a panic attack earlier in the month, so I thought he was just having another panic attack, and that’s why he had the blankets over him,” Gambaryan said.

He tugged on the blanket, only to find pillows and a water bottle stuffed in Anjarwalla’s sock. His colleague had made a dummy of himself.

While Anjarwalla had surrendered his Kenyan passport, he apparently kept his British passport hidden from Nigerian authorities. This is what he used to make his getaway. He made his way to the airport, where he boarded a flight for Kenya before the cops could catch up with him.

“I would have appreciated a heads up,” Gambaryan joked.

While Nigeria arranged an interpol Red Notice for Anjarwalla — which is still in effect — Gambaryan was left to bear the brunt of Nigerian authorities’ wrath.

A pawn

From the outset, it seemed clear that Gambaryan was a pawn in a larger conflict between Binance and the Nigerian central bank, as well as authorities in the nation’s anti-corruption and economic ministries.

They blamed the world’s largest crypto exchange for destabilising its fiat currency, the naira, which lost more than 90% of its value in early 2024.

‘Anybody who knows me or my prior job knows how ridiculous that is.’— Tigran Gambaryan, Binance

Last week, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, the government’s Minister of Information, told DL News that investigators had also found evidence Binance was laundering illicit crypto transactions for terrorists and kidnappers.

“We stumbled on evidence linking the operations of Binance and these criminal elements ― terrorists and their like,” the minister said in an exclusive interview.

In his talk, Gambaryan, 40, described how he used to be an agent with the Internal Revenue Service and then put his skills to use at Binance by helping foreign governments contend with crypto fraud.

To be charged with being complicit in the very crimes he’d spent his career exposing was shocking, he said.

“Anybody who knows me or my prior job knows how ridiculous that is,” he said, “or where my residence is — I never earned any money in Nigeria.”

Charged in connection with an alleged $35 million money laundering scheme, Gambaryan was transferred to Kuje Prison, a facility that also housed terrorists and violent convicts. He was jailed in an underground cell.

“Imagine the worst place possible,” Gambaryan said. “No running water, no air conditioning, no showers.”

US lawmakers visit

He contracted malaria and developed double pneumonia. He spent so much time laid out on a metal bed frame, he developed debilitating back pain.

After appearing in court in a wheelchair, Nigerian authorities instructed guards to make sure he made his next appearance on his own two feet.

He said authorities barred his lawyers from helping him get to the courtroom.

“If you watch the video, I try to reach out to one of the guards,” Gambaryan recounted. “He pulled his arm away because they were instructed not to help me out.”

“By them trying to make it seem like I’m doing okay, they actually made the situation worse.”

After media accounts reported on Gambaryan’s alarming condition — DL News broke the news of Gambaryan’s and Anjarwalla’s detainment and covered the case in detail — US lawmakers took notice.

In June, two members of Congress visited Gambaryan in prison and were dismayed by his deteriorating health.

Pressed for action

That same month, Yuki Gambaryan, Tigran’s wife, told DL News that she had expected more from Washington.

“I am shocked at how long it took for us to get to this point,” she told DL News in an exclusive video interview.

“It feels like the US government just got to the starting line now, which should have happened a long time ago.”

By September, the Biden administration had begun leaning on Abuja to release Gambaryan. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, buttonholed a senior Nigerian official that month in New York and pressed him for action.

The next month, Nigerian prosecutors dropped the charges and released Gambaryan. He was on a plane home that night.

Asked to reflect on the implications of his ordeal, Gambaryan said Tuesday that Nigeria had turned down a potential revenue source — its growing crypto industry — for a scored-earth campaign that had diminished the country in foreign investors’ eyes.

$81 billion bill

Indeed, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, was once a vibrant crypto market. Now stablecoin use has plunged 38% in the last year as the government cracks down on the industry.

“They’re stuck with it now. It’s almost like they have to continue with this,” Gambaryan said.

“Nobody’s gonna go back and do any business there. The last time they gave guarantees, look what happened.”

As for Binance, it is still confronting three separate legal actions in Nigeria, including the tax ministry’s demand it pay a staggering $81 billion penaltyl for lost economic activity.

The exchange has pleaded not guilty in the matters as trials loom.

DLNews

Related story: Nigeria Alleges Binance Facilitated Terrorism, Kidnapping Funding