Virtual Card in Nigeria Report

Background

We analysed 33,000+ tweets from the past 2 years about virtual (Naira/Dollar) cards in Nigeria. Here's the report we put together based on our findings.

Introduction

Virtual cards have become essential for Nigerians—whether you're paying for Apple Music, shopping on Shein, or even renewing your AI chatbot subscription.

For many Nigerians, it isn't just about convenience. The security and flexibility it provides are other reasons why they use it. However, for some reasons that this report will highlight, they have experienced frustration, silence, uncertainty, and sometimes joy. And as virtual card providers ourselves, we couldn't just sit back and watch.

So, in March 2025, we at Cardtonic decided to stop guessing and start listening. We dove into 2 years’ worth of Twitter data (2023–2025) to understand:

What real users are saying about virtual dollar cards.
The platforms getting it right (and wrong).
What matters most to customers.
How we can improve our offering.

We’re publishing this openly because we believe the entire industry can benefit. It is raw, analysed, and transparent. Because feedback, when properly analysed, is gold.

Our Methodology: How We Stalked Twitter (Legally)

Before diving into the findings, let's get the technical stuff out of the way:

Data Collection: We used Apify's Twitter scraper to gather tweets containing keywords like "dollar card," "virtual card," "USD card," etc. (Yes, this cost us money, but don’t worry, we won't invoice you for reading this report.😃)
Data Cleaning: Our data team (shoutout to Lawrence, our AI and Data wizard) used Python pandas to clean the data, removing duplicates, irrelevant tweets, and official company posts.
Sentiment Analysis: We employed the "cardiffnlp/twitter-roberta-base-sentiment" model to classify the tweets as positive, negative, or neutral.
Storage & Analysis: Every tweet was stored in Airtable.
Notion: This was where the ideation happened.
Deepseek: We validated our results with findings from Deepseek, and for further AI analysis of the data.
ChatGPT: What’s better than one validation? Two! We further evaluated the findings with ChatGPT.

Summary of the Dataset

Category	Value
Time Range	January 2023 - March 2025
Total Tweets Scraped	33,028
Tweets After Cleaning	15,247
Unique Users After Cleaning	11,150
Sentiment Breakdown	Neutral - 51.6%
	Positive - 22.7%
	Negative - 25.7%
Overall Industry Outlook	Positive
Most Tweeted Brand	Chipper Cash - 2,283 mentions
Best Mix of Volume + Sentiment	Klasha
Best Newcomer	Cardtonic

Overall Industry Outlook:
Looking Back to How Far We Have Come

The overall industry trend suggests that there have been a whole lot of improvement as regards product offering. This wasn't the same two to three years ago. Positive sentiment towards the industry is growing and we hope it can only get better from here.

The Players: Who's Who in the Virtual Card Game

The Players: Let’s look at the major players and how they stack up.

Provider	Total Tweets	Positive %	Negative %	Neutral %
Chipper Cash	2283	10.3%	40.5%	49.2%
Flutterwave	463	4.8%	22.2%	73.0%
Klasha	363	45.7%	9.4%	44.9%
Grey	283	16.6%	31.8%	51.6%
Cardtonic	278	43.6%	24.4%	32.1%
ALAT by Werma	272	9.6%	46.0%	44.5%
Payday	189	9.0%	62.4%	28.6%
Geegpay	187	10.7%	56.1%	33.2%
Eversend	101	32.7%	26.7%	40.6%
Kuda Bank	86	7.0%	29.1%	64.0%
Cardify	70	10.0%	45.7%	44.3%
Bitnob	61	23.0%	34.4%	42.6%
Swyftpay	58	22.4%	31.0%	46.6%
Dantown	53	35.8%	15.1%	49.1%
Cleva	49	36.7%	8.2%	55.1%
Gomoney	42	57.1%	7.1%	35.7%
Bitsika	40	15.0%	35.0%	50.0%
Vesti	33	27.3%	42.4%	30.3%
Switch	22	36.4%	4.5%	59.1%
Tribapay	22	22.7%	54.5%	22.7%
Changera	20	20.0%	50.0%	30.0%
Geepay	17	5.9%	58.8%	35.3%
Eyowo	17	23.5%	11.8%	64.7%
Fundall	12	8.3%	33.3%	58.3%
Nearpays	7	57.1%	0.0%	42.9%
Zole	2	0.0%	50.0%	50.0%

Observations:

Let's look at the major players in Nigeria's virtual card space and how they stack up.

Chipper Cash dominates in tweet volume

Klasha is winning the popularity contest with a whopping 45.7% positive sentiment.

Newer entrants like Cardtonic show promising positive sentiment despite their recent entry.

Some older players are struggling with high negative sentiment despite years in the market.

P.S We dropped brands with less than two tweets from the dataset and we also cleaned out tweets from the providers to remove biases.

Overall Sentiment Distribution:

From 2023 to 2025:

Top 5 Praised Providers (By Sentiment %):

Most Criticised Platforms

(By Volume of Negative Tweets)

Common Platforms Where Nigerians Use Virtual Cards:

Based on our research, we put together a list of the common platforms Nigerians use virtual cards on. This list is not exhaustive, but it covers a wide range of platforms.

Major Observations

Positive Sentiment Drivers

These entail the qualities that users appreciate in virtual cards. They include ease of use, low fees, crypto funding options, international acceptance, responsive support, multi-currency features, and design & flexibility.

Ease of Use: Users loved fast onboarding from Grey, Cleva, Klasha, Cardtonic – “created card in seconds!”
Low Fees: Bitnob, Dantown, and Cardtonic stood out for their transparent pricing.
Crypto Funding Options: Chipper and Bitnob scored high for allowing USDT/USDC card top-ups.
International Acceptance: Cards that worked with Apple, Spotify, Shein, PayPal got praises.
Responsive Support: Cleva’s support team? Fast. Users loved them for resolving issues instantly.
Multi-currency Features: Grey and Switch offered USD, GBP, EUR accounts—great for freelancers and travellers.
Design & Flexibility: Klasha was praised for functional card designs (pink card, US billing address, etc).

Negative Sentiment Drivers

Just as users appreciated the positive qualities, they also lamented about the negative ones—cards declining, poor support, high fees, delayed issuance, fraudulent charges, technical bugs, and lack of transparency

Card Declines: This was the most repeated pain point: “Card didn’t work on Apple,” “declined at Spotify checkout,” and so on.
Poor Support: Emails unanswered for weeks, no resolution after debit failures.
High Fees: “Charged ₦7,000 for a $20 card and I still couldn’t use it.”
Delayed Issuance: “Paid for card, waited days, nothing showed up.”
Fraudulent Charges: Users reported unauthorised deductions and zero accountability.
Technical Bugs: Errors during funding, app freezes, and missing balances.
Lack of Transparency: Hidden fees, surprise charges, and no billing breakdowns.

Final Recommendations

Let’s Make Cards Work:
No one wants to gamble at checkout. Reliability should be the default.
We Must Fix Our Support Teams:
A WhatsApp bot ghosting people for days isn't something users want to experience. 24/7 live chat? Yes, please!
The Shady Fees Should Cease:
Let’s be honest about pricing. People don’t mind paying—if they know why.
The Process can Be Faster:
Instant issuance, faster reversals, and real-time FX rate visibility will win us love.
Human-like Communication will Keep Customers:
Not everyone is a fintech nerd. Using simple, clear, human language in our emails and apps is the way to go.

Cardtonic's Perspective:
Our Take on the Findings

As one of the newer players in this space, we're both humbled and encouraged by these findings. With 43.6% positive sentiment and 32.1% neutral sentiment, we're clearly doing something right. But we also recognise that there's plenty of room for improvement which is exactly what we intend to do.

We see this research as a roadmap for the entire industry. The data clearly shows that users value reliability, transparency, and responsive support above all else. These aren't just nice-to-haves; they're essential for any provider aiming to succeed in this competitive landscape.

Conclusion:
What's Next and How We'll Use this Data

So what are we doing with all this Twitter stalking?
Here's our plan:

Listen and Learn: We're studying the positive experiences users have with all providers to identify best practices.
Address Pain Points: Every complaint is an opportunity to build a better product.
Be Transparent: No hidden fees, no surprise policies.
Keep Measuring: This report is just the beginning—we'll continue monitoring sentiment to gauge industry health.