Pioneering Roles

UP® prides itself in Leadership & Innovations in Payments & Financial Technology and has contributed significantly to the growth of electronic payments & financial technology in Nigeria. These contributions and exceptional value-innovations include but not limited to:

  • Pioneered the issuance and acceptance of EMV Chip+PIN cards in Nigeria leading to reduction of ATM fraud in Nigeria by over 95%.
  • Enabled Nigerian banks to issue payment cards to Naira account holders to be used for the first time-ever globally.
  • Enabled Nigerian banks for first-ever acceptance of foreign cards at their ATMs
  • Enabled Nigerian Merchants the use of Nigerian Naira as transaction currency when cards issued under global card schemes are used at merchant locations in Nigeria. Hitherto, the only acceptable transaction currency was United States Dollars.
  • First Nigerian Principal Member of a global payment scheme and the only Nigerian non-bank Principal Member.
  • Joint Acquiring company for Nigerian banks.
  • First EMV Third Party Processor in Nigeria.
  • First Acquirer and Processor to deploy Near-Field-Communication (NFC) technology for remote/distant and proximity/contactless transactions in Nigeria.
  • First Settlement Agent to enable Nigerian merchants for Hourly Settlement Service (UP-HSS).
  • First service provider to enable Payment and Withdrawal on POS, WEB and ATM with just phone number.
  • Pioneer in the use of telephone number as digital money account number.
  • Pioneered multibank mobile application and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data)