Mastercard SME Survey Shows Digital Payments Vital for Nigerian Biz Growth

Sponsored content: Mastercard's 2026 SME Confidence Index shows 100% of surveyed Nigerian SMEs view digital and online payments as vital for growth, with 42% already accepting them and 57% operating through both physical and online channels. Digital-payment fraud losses reported by NIBSS dropped 51% in 2025 to NGN25.85 billion, though part of the decline stems from a single NGN31.1 billion incident that inflated 2024 figures, indicating real but incomplete security improvements. The article explains that as card-not-present transactions rise - where payment credentials are sent digitally without a physical card shown - trust must be built into the infrastructure itself. Mastercard's tokenization replaces card numbers with secure tokens, now used in over 30% of its global transactions (more than four billion tokenized each month) and targeting 100% tokenization of online purchases by 2030. Its Decision Intelligence AI analyzes transaction signals in real time to improve fraud detection while keeping checkout seamless for genuine buyers. Beyond technology, Mastercard highlights collaborative efforts: the Africa Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, initially focused on South Africa and Nigeria, shares intelligence across public and private sectors; Merchant Trust Service helps acquirers spot fraudulent merchants from onboarding through ongoing monitoring. For Nigerian businesses expanding beyond geography via Instagram, interstate buyers, or overseas payments, the piece argues that trust - embedded in credentials, merchants, risk intelligence, and the payment chain - will determine how confidently they can transact and scale in the digital economy.

SOURCE: https://nairametrics.com/2026/09/17/when-the-card-isnt-there-why-trust-matters-in-digital-commerce/