Three tier-one lenders go live on launch day.
UBA, FirstBank and GTBank customers can now add their cards to Google Wallet and pay with Google Pay. The three banks switched the service on as Google Pay launched in Nigeria on Tuesday, October 27.
Google has updated its wallet directory to support card tokenization for four Nigerian banks, with Zenith Bank as the fourth. Tokenization replaces the card number with a substitute code at checkout, so the merchant never sees the real card details.
UBA said it was rolling out in-store contactless payments for its account holders the same day. FirstBank said eligible cardholders can tap to pay at supported terminals worldwide. GTCO took a different route. Its bank, GTBank, launched Google Pay for online payments, and its payments arm, HabariPay, turned on Google Pay acceptance for every merchant on its Squad gateway.
Group CEO Segun Agbaje explained the bet in a statement: "Most failed online payments are not refused; they are abandoned."
GTBank chief executive Miriam Olusanya said customers can now pay online without entering their card details each time.
Which cards work
Google's Nigeria listing covers Mastercard cards at all four banks. UBA's Visa prepaid card is the only Visa product on the list. Verve, which Google described in 2023 as Africa's largest domestic card scheme, does not appear in the launch coverage.
Bank | Supported cards |
|---|---|
UBA | Mastercard credit, debit and prepaid; Visa prepaid |
FirstBank | Mastercard debit |
GTBank | Mastercard debit and prepaid |
Zenith Bank | Mastercard credit, debit and prepaid |
Customers add a card once, through the Google Wallet app on Android or through their Google Account. At an online checkout, they choose Google Pay, pick the card and confirm, with no card number, expiry date or CVV to type. Paying in a shop needs an Android phone with NFC.
On Squad, "Pay with Google Pay" now sits at the top of the checkout, above card, bank transfer, USSD and buy-now-pay-later options. The option is on by default, and merchants can turn it off. Squad merchants who accept international payments can take Google Pay from buyers abroad, including Nigerians in the diaspora.
Tapping in a shop may not work yet.
Adding a card to the wallet does not mean every shop will accept a tap. Phone payments need a point-of-sale terminal with an active NFC reader and updated software.
Banks' fraud systems may also decline mobile token payments they have not seen before. Until acquirers upgrade their terminals, customers should keep carrying the physical card.
Interswitch also announced on October 27 that it is working with GTBank, Wema Bank, ProvidusBank, Zenith Bank and FirstBank to bring tap-to-pay through Google Pay, Apple Pay and bank apps to merchants across Nigeria.
Online payments were already possible from the merchant side. Interswitch added Google Pay to its payment gateway in 2023, about a year after Flutterwave integrated it. Paystack has offered Google Pay at web checkout since September 2026. This week's change is on the issuing side: the banks' own cards can now go into the wallet. South Africa became the first African country on Google Wallet in 2022.
