“Can a locally-licensed Nigerian payments company become the default agent-banking and bill-payment super-app for African merchants?”
Founded in 2015 as Callphone, the company built a bill-payments platform for the Nigerian market. In 2022 it became the pioneer recipient of the CBN's first 3-in-1 PSS license, letting it operate as a payment gateway, POS deployer, and super-agent for agent banking under one entity. In January 2025 it rebranded to Airvend Payment Services Limited and repositioned as a super-app spanning B2B APIs, terminals, agency banking, B2C payments, Restaurant-as-a-Service, and virtual accounts.
Airvend (formerly Callphone) discloses Airvend Payment Services Limited (in-house) as its banking provider, according to the Embedded Finance Index 2026.
Airvend (formerly Callphone) does not disclose a bank charter of its own; its banking services are provided through Airvend Payment Services Limited (in-house).
Airvend (formerly Callphone) processes payments through Airgate (self-operated) and Airpay (self-operated).
Airvend (formerly Callphone)'s cards run on Verve, Visa and Mastercard.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in Airvend (formerly Callphone)'s stack: Payments / PSP (Airgate (self-operated) and Airpay (self-operated)); Banking / BaaS (Airvend Payment Services Limited (in-house)); Card network (Verve, Visa and Mastercard).
Airvend (formerly Callphone) is founded in 2015 and headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Airvend (formerly Callphone) and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.