PayPal Merchant Losing Nigeria
Quote from Ndubuisi Ekekwe on December 12, 2017, 9:09 PMPayPal remains unavailable to Nigerian startups who want to receive payments online. But it does support us to spend, allowing personal accounts, while denying us the merchant account privileges. We may not even need to wait as local companies like Paystack, Flutterwave and VoguePay are filling the gaps.
Today, another player, PayU, owned by South Africa's Naspers, Africa's largest company by market capitalization, unveiled PayU.
PayU Receive is a secure payment solution that facilitates business-to-business and business-to-consumer payments easily via email or SMS. It allows businesses to make use of PayU’s safe and secure payment services by allowing them to send payment requests via email or sms to their customers. Customers then have the flexibility of paying via their bank cards or their bank accounts
So for those Nigerian companies looking for PayPal Merchant accounts, to receive payments from international customers, PayU could serve. Yet, PayU has a major limitation: you may be unable to integrate it the same way you can do Paypal Merchant.
PayU seems to be manually driven since you have to manually send the invoice to a customer: "In the PayU Receive platform, simply enter the customer reference and payment amount to generate your unique sms, email or link to use in social media. Once the customer clicks on the link or payment button, the customer is directed to a secure payment page." In PayPal, a customer could have gone to the site and execute this. Perhaps, we may need to keep hoping for PayPal to come.
PayPal remains unavailable to Nigerian startups who want to receive payments online. But it does support us to spend, allowing personal accounts, while denying us the merchant account privileges. We may not even need to wait as local companies like Paystack, Flutterwave and VoguePay are filling the gaps.
Today, another player, PayU, owned by South Africa's Naspers, Africa's largest company by market capitalization, unveiled PayU.
PayU Receive is a secure payment solution that facilitates business-to-business and business-to-consumer payments easily via email or SMS. It allows businesses to make use of PayU’s safe and secure payment services by allowing them to send payment requests via email or sms to their customers. Customers then have the flexibility of paying via their bank cards or their bank accounts
So for those Nigerian companies looking for PayPal Merchant accounts, to receive payments from international customers, PayU could serve. Yet, PayU has a major limitation: you may be unable to integrate it the same way you can do Paypal Merchant.
Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 16 (Feb 10 – May 3, 2025) opens registrations; register today for early bird discounts.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations here.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and invest in Africa’s finest startups here.
PayU seems to be manually driven since you have to manually send the invoice to a customer: "In the PayU Receive platform, simply enter the customer reference and payment amount to generate your unique sms, email or link to use in social media. Once the customer clicks on the link or payment button, the customer is directed to a secure payment page." In PayPal, a customer could have gone to the site and execute this. Perhaps, we may need to keep hoping for PayPal to come.