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.
Malvina Goldfeld, PayPal’s Head of Business Development, sub-Saharan Africa, recently made the revelation to tech news site IT Web Africa, 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. 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.
