Global electronic payment platform, PayPal, has revealed that Nigeria has become its second biggest market in Africa, less than one year after formally launching its services in the West African country.
PayPal’s Head of Business Development, sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Malvina Goldfeld, recently made the revelation to a tech news site, while expressing satisfaction with PayPal’s overwhelming success in Nigeria since it officially launched in July last year.
“We are very happy to see that PayPal has been widely welcomed by Nigerians since the launch of the service in the country last year,” Goldfeld said.
South Africa is PayPal’s largest market in the continent, with more than one million active accounts; Nigeria and Kenya follow closely.
Goldfeld said PayPal is meeting the needs of Nigerians that purchase goods and services on foreign platforms.
“There are millions of people in Nigeria who are eager to engage in online commerce and our goal is to help them make payments more easily and securely. Currently, we offer Nigerians the opportunity to register for free for a PayPal account to make payments on overseas websites,” she said.
But PayPal’s relationship with Nigerian users is one-sided, as Nigerians are only allowed to send payments abroad through the platform.
Users are currently unable to receive money, and even though Nigerian internet users have continuously demanded for this service, PayPal and Goldfeld have been elusive as to if and when the service will be accessible to Nigerians.
Founded in 1998, PayPal continues to be at the forefront of the digital payments revolution, processing almost 11.5 million payments for its customers per day.
PayPal gives people better ways to connect to their money and to each other, helping them send money without sharing financial information with the seller and with the flexibility to pay using their PayPal account balances debit and credit cards.
With its 162 million active digital wallets, PayPal has created an open and more secure payments ecosystem people and businesses choose to securely transact with each other online, in stores and on mobile devices.
According to Goldfeld, “PayPal is a truly global payments platform that is available to people in 203 countries and markets, allowing customers to get paid in more than 100 currencies, withdraw funds to their bank accounts in 57 currencies and hold balances in their PayPal accounts in 26 currencies.”
