For Nigeria’s rapidly expanding financial sector, the true bottleneck to scaling has rarely been user acquisition; it has been the physical infrastructure of payments.
On April 24, 2026, at the Lagos Polo Club in Ikoyi, CardForté Limited marked its 5th anniversary by gathering the titans of the Nigerian payments industry to address this reality.
The event underscored a critical shift in the ecosystem: local card manufacturing is no longer just a patriotic alternative. It is the strategic backbone of Nigeria’s digital economy.
The exclusive Leadership Breakfast, hosted by Gbenga Aborowa, convened executives from tier-1 banks, leading fintechs, domestic and regional card schemes.
The gathering moved beyond celebratory remarks to tackle the hard questions facing the industry through three high-impact panel sessions, a football tournament among industry teams, and an evening anniversary dinner.
The morning opened with the “Local vs. Global: The Battle for the Nigerian Wallet” panel, moderated by Unyime Tommy, Managing Partner at Assurdly.
The discussion tackled the tension between domestic schemes and international giants. Grace Adeniyi, Divisional Head of Governance and Regional Operations at Verve International, and Ugo Obasi, E.D/Chief Commercial Officer of AfriGOPay, articulated the strategic necessity of local schemes in mitigating foreign exchange exposure for issuing banks.
They were joined by Celestina Appeal, Head of Card Business and Solutions at Zenith Bank, who provided the issuer’s perspective on balancing the national mandate for domestic cards with the consumer demand for global acceptance. A key consensus emerged: with over 95 percent of transactions occurring domestically, the economic argument for local card issuance is undeniable.
The conversation then pivoted to the last mile of financial access in the “Financial Inclusion and Agency Banking” session, moderated by Dr. Stanley Jacob, CEO of Zest Payments and Chairman of FinTechNGR. Femi Davies, Senior Vice President of Cards at Moniepoint and Bode Oyegoke, General Manager of Payments and Ecosystems at MTN Group, debated the unit economics of agency banking and the evolution of the agent network from basic cash-in/cash-out services to comprehensive financial touchpoints.
Temitope AkinFadeyi joined the discussion, and the panelists explored how agency banking has brought millions of Nigerians into the financial system, while acknowledging the challenges of fraud prevention, agent liquidity, and consumer protection that come with rapid scale.
The final panel, “Beyond the Card,” moderated by Jimmy Banjoko, Head of Acquiring and Channels Management at GTBank, explored the future form factors of payments. Nnamdi Azodo, Group Head of Card Business at Sterling Bank, Lanre Ogundare, Head of Card Business and Solutions at Providus Bank, and Wale Sogeyinbo, Head of Payment Processing and Acquiring at Wema Bank, dissected the slow adoption of tokenization and TapToPay in Nigeria.
The panelists acknowledged that while digital and contactless payments are the future, the physical card remains an absolute imperative for the present, primarily driven by issuer costs and infrastructure readiness.
The celebration extended well beyond the panel sessions. Teams from Sterling Bank, Providus Bank, Verve International, PalmPay, and Card Centre Nigeria Limited (CCNL) participated in a competitive football tournament. PalmPay took home the trophy, reinforcing the spirit of partnership and camaraderie that has defined CardForté’s relationships across the industry.
Beyond the high-level discourse, the event highlighted CardForté’s quiet but massive impact on the sector. Tunde Aka-Bashorun, Executive Director at CardForté, revealed that since its inception in April 2021, the company has manufactured over 27 million cards for more than 150 clients, serving as the critical launch partner for numerous fintechs and first-time issuers.
“Our graduate trainee programme has seen us absorb approximately 45 percent of our personnel from the NYSC level to full staff. CardForté maintains 100 percent local staff. Rather than hire foreign talent, we send our people to acquire knowledge, return, and transmit it internally,” Aka-Bashorun stated.
Seun Lawal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CardForté, closed the event by framing the company’s mission within the broader context of national sovereignty.
“One of the biggest values we have created is local capability,” Lawal noted. “For a long time, there was a mindset that if something is high-value, technical, or security-sensitive, it must come from outside Nigeria. We have challenged that thinking by showing that local manufacturing, when done to the right standard, can deliver quality, reliability, and innovation. It means shorter turnaround times, less dependence on imports, and greater data sovereignty because critical parts of the card ecosystem are handled locally.”
The evening anniversary dinner brought together CardForté’s shareholders, including Deji Onyinlola, Olumide Soyombo (Co-Founder of Bluechip Technologies and Founder of Voltron Capital), and Gbenga Ajayi (Partner and Head of Africa and Middle East at QED Investors), alongside board members, staff and their families. Industry partners also joined the celebration, including representatives from Providus Bank, Moniepoint, Fidelity Bank, Taj Bank, Payaza, Watchdata, Kalabash, ECP (Aegis Cards), Stanbic IBTC, Zojatech, Winich Farms, and Greychapel Legal.
The breadth of attendance was a testament not only to CardForte’s relationships across banking, technology, agriculture, and professional services, but also to the strength of the family that has been built within the company over five years.
As Nigeria’s payment landscape continues to mature, CardForte’s five-year trajectory offers a powerful blueprint: sustainable scale requires indigenous infrastructure.
By replacing imported plastic with locally manufactured smart cards, CardForte is not just supplying the fintech boom. It is securing it.
