PayPal does not allow Nigeria accounts to receive money; you can only send payments with your Nigerian PayPal account after linking your ATM or debit card to it.
Over the years, many Nigerians have tried various ways of bypassing this PayPal limitation on Nigeria. They end up creating PayPal accounts with countries that have full send & receive money features such as UAE, South Africa, Lesotho, USA and UK; with help of VPN & other third party services.
Off course, I need not tell you the benefit of PayPal to the average entrepreneur or online freelancer in Nigeria. PayPal is the biggest international payment platform in the world, and is the number one choice of payment for goods & services online.
I want to share some important reasons while PayPal need to reconsider their position on Nigeria.
PayPal needs to understand that she needs Nigeria more than Nigeria needs her. With over 109 million internet users, Nigeria has the largest internet users in Africa, with Egypt ranking a distant second at 75 million. Nigeria has the biggest economy in Africa with a GDP of over 500 billion US Dollars, closely followed by the economies of South Africa & Egypt. These are crucial reasons PayPal must consider regarding their position on Nigeria.
With Africa gradually realizing its huge potential in the financial technology sector, leading to the rise of major Fintech startups such as Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, InterSwitch & many more. International investors & venture capitalists have shown confidence in the continent, with investments running into billions of dollars in various African Fintech startups. Unsurprisingly, Nigerian startups accounts for a major share of these investments. Nigeria is the focal point for international business & remittance in Africa.
PayPal seems to be lagging behind when it comes to developing new opportunities, In October 2020, a major PayPal competitor, Stripe, acquired Nigerian payments company, Paystack in a $200M deal. Stripe explained that their mission for acquiring Paystack was to enable them expand their global payments network to new countries & territories of the world. Thanks to this acquisition, Nigerian businesses & entrepreneurs will have more options to receiving international payments.
PayPal’s fear about doing business with Nigeria is due to the country’s bad reputation of internet scams & fraud. These concerns are genuine, but not enough reasons to ban the entire country. Nigeria is not the country with the most global internet scams; a simple Google search will prove this fact.
Infact, global internet scam cases emanating from Nigeria have been declining in recent years thanks to the pragmatic efforts of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), whose Chairman, recently was lamenting PayPal’s prolonged ban on Nigeria despite their best efforts.
It is wrong to punish the majority of a people because of the negative activities of a tiny minority. This in my humble opinion is what PayPal is doing to Nigeria, a country of over 200 million people ranking as the most populous country in Africa.
It is a big capital flight on the Nigerian economy that funds can be transferred via PayPal out of Nigeria, while it is impossible for inflow to come in through the same platform. This is quite unfair!
The recent collaboration between PayPal and Nigerian Fintech giant, Flutterwave is commendable. This partnership allows Nigerian merchants receive PayPal payments using the Flutterwave platform. While it is a step in the right direction, we continue to demand that PayPal should lift its ban on Nigeria, by allowing Nigerian PayPal accounts to receive money.