Brands/Products
Verve Splashes Gifts on Over 1,000 Customers
By Ahmed Rahma
Over 1,000 Verve cardholders have been rewarded in the ongoing Verve Good Life promo after its sixth weekly draw held recently.
The campaign seeks to enable customers of the company to live the good life. During the exercise, cash prizes and airtime would be won from September 1, 2020, till December 13, 2020, following the two weeks extension to allow for more winners.
It was gathered that 1,250 lucky cardholders of Verve have won prizes worth N11.5 million out of the over N27 million in cash and airtime allotted for over 2,500 cardholders nationwide.
For the September monthly raffle draws, Verve rewarded 50 lucky cardholders with N50,000 cash prize each. Similarly, 300 Verve cardholders also emerged winners of the N10,000 cash prize in the weekly raffle draws, while another set of 300 cardholders emerged winners of airtime worth N5,000.
Among the 50 lucky cardholders that won N50,000 cash prize in the first monthly raffle draws were Anita Iwunze, an account holder with Zenith Bank and Raheem Olatayo Ibrahim, an account holder with Wema Bank from Lagos State.
Iboro Henry John, an account holder with Skye Bank from Akwa-Ibom State and Idris Yakubu Galadima, an account holder with First Bank from Nassarawa State also emerged winners.
Speaking during the draws, the Group Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Interswitch Group, Ms Cherry Eromosele, remarked that rewarding and making Verve’s esteemed cardholders happy is underpinned by the company’s core values.
“We pride ourselves in empowering our loyal cardholders to enable them achieve their dreams. We understand these are indeed challenging times across the globe.
“For this reason, the Verve Good Life promo is targeted at enhancing the living standards of our loyal cardholders and we will continue to champion this cause.
“In addition to the invaluable experience we provide our numerous cardholders, we will continue to provide innovative, tailor-fit products and services to our loyal cardholders,” she said.
Ms Eromosele further pointed out that Verve is changing the narrative of how to reward loyalty through the Verve Good Life promo.
She opined that Verve has been able to deepen brand love and consumer loyalty by putting its cardholder’s satisfaction at the nexus of its operations as well as providing seamless, secure, and fast payment solutions.
Having rewarded 1,250 customers out of the over 2,500 targeted customers, there is a pool of an equal number of customers to be rewarded.
Banking customers without Verve cards are advised to visit their respective banks to request for a Verve card. This, in turn, will avail them the opportunity to be among the over 1,250 more to emerge winners in the ongoing promo.
Cardholders are expected to use their Verve cards frequently to stand a chance to win. Specifically, to qualify for the weekly categories, new and existing cardholders are expected to transact with their Verve cards for as many as three times in a week.
For the monthly wins, cardholders will have to use their cards 12 times to do any of these: transfer funds, pay bills, recharge airtime, withdraw cash, etc.
For the Grand prize of N1 million, cardholders will have to use their cards 36 times within the next five weeks, across PoS terminals, ATMs, Web, and agent banking centres.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
An institutional investor, First Ally Capital, has strengthened a leading Nigerian financial technology company, Mathesis Analytics, to scale its proprietary credit decisioning infrastructure.
It made this possible by injecting fresh capital into the firm, which specialises in AI-powered credit decisioning infrastructure, an action that will directly support the growth and scaling of Mathesis’ core mission of providing the intelligence and infrastructure needed to bridge the credit gap for millions of unscored or underscored individuals across Nigeria.
With this investment, Mathesis will enable financial institutions to confidently assess and extend credit to borrowers who lack a formal credit history by leveraging an expanded pool of alternative behavioural and transactional data.
To date, Mathesis’ systems have supported more than 8 million loans for over 2 million unique borrowers in Nigeria, and the company is actively deploying its infrastructure to establish a growing pan-African footprint.
With the investment from First Ally Capital, Mathesis is well positioned to transform how the credit ecosystem operates, driving financial inclusion in partnership with lenders across the continent.
A significant barrier to credit access in Nigeria, which prides itself on being Africa’s largest economy, is data fragmentation. Borrowers frequently build positive financial behaviours across multiple digital platforms by repaying microfinance loans, saving through fintech wallets, or servicing Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) facilities.
However, under traditional credit infrastructure, these achievements remain invisible to new lenders.
Mathesis addresses this challenge through the concept of Personal Equity—the quantified expression of an individual’s financial behaviour aggregated across every institution with which they have transacted.
By translating these disparate signals into a precise, portable measure of creditworthiness, Mathesis creates a comprehensive credit identity that reflects the full breadth of a person’s financial life.
“True financial inclusion cannot be achieved in a vacuum; it requires structural collaboration in which lenders and fintech companies work as partners within the ecosystem.
“This investment from First Ally Capital validates our approach to reshaping credit infrastructure. By quantifying Personal Equity, we empower lenders to safely look beyond the constraints of formal credit histories and recognise a borrower’s true creditworthiness. This capital enables us to accelerate our pan-African expansion while maintaining the robust, institutional-grade infrastructure our partners rely on,” the chief executive of Mathesis Analytics, Winston Osuchukwu, stated.
On his part, the chief executive of First Ally Capital, Mr Ebenezer Olufowose, said, “At First Ally Capital, we pride ourselves on being a one-stop destination for financial solutions, offering a diverse portfolio of services ranging from investment banking and asset management to trusteeship, inclusive banking, and real estate.
“Our investment in Mathesis Analytics reflects our strong belief in the company’s vision and our commitment to supporting forward-thinking enterprises that deliver excellence.”
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The chief executive of Canal+ Africa, Mr David Mignot, has disclosed that MultiChoice is now fully integrated into the media group.
Mr Mignot disclosed this via a statement issued on Thursday, noting that this development marks a new phase in the evolution of one of Africa’s leading pay television operators.
He noted that the integration positions MultiChoice within a global media organisation with an extensive international footprint.
“MultiChoice is now a full subsidiary of a truly international media group operating in 70 countries. The group was founded in France, is listed in London and Johannesburg, and has a strong African presence with operations in more than 45 countries,” Mr Mignot said.
The statement underscores the scale of the combined business, highlighting Canal+’s global reach alongside its significant investments across Africa.
The completion of the transaction is expected to strengthen MultiChoice’s position in the African media and entertainment market by giving it access to the broader resources, expertise and international capabilities of the Canal+ Group, while reinforcing the group’s commitment to the continent.
MultiChoice operates across sub-Saharan Africa through platforms including DStv and GOtv, serving millions of subscribers with entertainment, sports and news content.
By Adedapo Adesanya
FoodCourt, a Nigerian cloud kitchen startup backed by Y Combinator, has suspended operations after months of unpaid salaries and mounting debts to vendors triggered a staff strike and forced the company to halt customer orders, according to a report by TechCabal.
The publication reported that customers first noticed on March 4 that they could no longer place orders through the FoodCourt app after the company disabled ordering as kitchen workers, delivery personnel and branch staff embarked on strike over unpaid wages. The company also owed outstanding payments to vendors.
By April 19, FoodCourt had temporarily shut its last operating branch after suspending activities across its Lagos and Abuja locations while seeking fresh funding and restructuring the business, according to the report.
The company’s chief executive, Mr Henry Nneji, said the decision to pause operations was not caused by a single issue but by a combination of operational, organisational and working-capital challenges.
“It’s important to clarify that the decision to pause operations wasn’t driven by one single issue. We reached a point where it became clear that continuing to patch those issues while operating wasn’t the right long-term decision,” he said.
“The objective is to build a stronger business than the one that existed before the suspension. We fully intend to bring FoodCourt back,” he added in an emailed response.
The company acknowledged outstanding obligations to employees, vendors, riders and service providers, but declined to disclose the number of affected workers or the total amount owed. It said efforts were underway to resolve the liabilities as part of its restructuring process.
It was also reported that the startup’s financial difficulties worsened after expansion into additional locations increased operating costs, while its cloud kitchen model came under pressure from rising labour, logistics, food and marketing expenses.
Despite the shutdown, Mr Nneji said FoodCourt intends to relaunch after completing its restructuring, adding that the company believes demand for its products remains strong.
Founded in 2021 by Henry Nneji and Paul Adokiye Iruene, FoodCourt operates cloud kitchens under multiple virtual restaurant brands through its consumer app. According to TechCabal, the startup had previously disclosed raising $1.7 million, delivering more than one million meals and reaching $4.3 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2024.
