Naira Cards Stage a Comeback: CBN Reforms Unlock International Payments

From abrupt stoppage to digital drought

In July 2022 several Nigerian banks, including GTBank, Zenith, FirstBank and Standard Chartered, emailed customers with an unwelcome notice: international spending on naira‑denominated debit cards would be suspended from 1 August. Scarce foreign‑exchange reserves and a multi‑window exchange‑rate regime had made it impossible for banks to settle card schemes in dollars, so the Central Bank of Nigeria quietly signalled that it preferred they shut the valve entirely.

For almost three years Nigerians who needed to pay for Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Web Services or even a fifteen‑pound IELTS report discovered that their perfectly funded naira cards were useless beyond the country’s borders. The scramble for alternatives created a cottage industry of virtual dollar cards.

The rise of virtual‑card start‑ups

Fintechs such as Chipper Cash, Grey, Klasha, Payday and ALAT by Wema rushed into the vacuum with prepaid virtual USD cards that could be topped up from local wallets. Reviews of “best virtual dollar cards for 2025” proliferated across tech blogs, and for many freelancers these apps became the only route to paying for GitHub Copilot or Figma Pro.

These services differentiated themselves on speed, foreign‑exchange spreads and per‑transaction caps, yet their very popularity was a symptom of policy failure. Everyday Nigerians had been forced into workaround mode.

Cardoso’s currency reset

President Tinubu appointed Olayemi Cardoso as CBN Governor in September 2023. Cardoso scrapped the crawling peg, merged multiple FX windows and moved incrementally towards a managed float. By the first quarter of 2025 the CBN reported net foreign‑exchange inflows of fifteen‑point‑two‑billion dollars, aided by diaspora remittances and oil receipts. The Governor told reporters that Nigeria finally had “a competitive currency”.

With dollar liquidity improving, commercial banks quietly reopened the pipes.

Early signs from the banks

On 24 June Wema Bank’s marketing team posted a purple banner reading “Guess Who’s Back”, confirming that its naira Mastercard could again handle international payments. Customers now enjoy a monthly cap of up to five hundred dollars, although the bank hints that limits will float with market conditions. Similar caps have since appeared on Zenith and a handful of other tier‑one lenders.

Early adopters ran live tests. One transaction of one‑hundred‑and‑ninety‑nine dollars on Amazon sailed through on a Zenith Bank debit card, while a fourteen‑ninety‑nine Spotify renewal processed without drama on ALAT. Twitter and Reddit threads confirm dozens of similar successes, although banks are yet to issue formal press releases.

What changes for consumers and start‑ups

• Subscriptions return. Netflix, YouTube Premium, Apple Music and domain‑name renewals can again be billed directly to primary bank cards instead of prepaid USD wallets.
• FX costs fall. Virtual‑card providers charge creation fees and spreads; naira cards settle closer to the official I and E window.
• Fintech repositioning. Chipper, Grey and Klasha will need to push deeper value such as overseas stock trading, global remittance and multi‑currency wallets because simple card utility is no longer scarce.
• Merchant optimism. SaaS vendors that blocked Nigerian IP ranges after payment failures may revisit the market.

Caveats and unanswered questions

• Variable caps. Wema offers five hundred dollars, some users report Zenith at two‑hundred dollars, while GTBank still shows legacy twenty‑dollar limits.
• Back‑end settlement. All foreign‑currency obligations still clear through the same CBN window; a renewed FX crunch could force another shutdown.
• Regulator mood. Cardoso’s reforms are popular with markets yet politically delicate at home. A change in oil prices or external debt conditions could alter the calculus.

Hardship remembered, relief welcomed

The card freeze hurt not only binge watchers but also software engineers who needed paid APIs, researchers who relied on international journals and small businesses that purchased SaaS for payroll or marketing. The Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy blamed the shortage on structural imbalances but offered few practical fixes. Families resorted to dollar‑purchasing Telegram groups, paying premiums as high as fifteen per cent just to fund a fifteen‑dollar Adobe subscription.

Today’s tentative reopening feels like meaningful vindication. It signals that Nigeria’s foreign‑exchange management is regaining credibility and that ordinary citizens need not become currency traders to watch football highlights on Paramount Plus.

Bottom line

International payments on naira cards are back, acting as a real‑time referendum on Cardoso’s currency strategy. Banks have started raising their caps, and the fintechs that filled the gap must now innovate beyond card proxies. Nigerians should keep an eye on monthly limits and foreign‑exchange bulletins, yet for now they can say it without irony: welcome back Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music and the seamless global life that was paused for almost three years.

This article was rewritten with the aid of AI
At Techsoma, we embrace AI and understand our role in providing context, driving narrative and changing culture.