The Story
For years, Paypal offered its services to a lot of countries except for a few which Nigeria happens to be one of them. It was a disappointing experience back then, trying to sign up for an account and right after Niger in the drop-down to select your country, Nigeria is nowhere to be found.
The hurdles and challenges you would have to go through to send a payment to someone abroad were intense. Online payments were basically a no-go area cause most e-commerce platforms only supported PayPal for accepting payments on their website. Most banks then were also not “Fully Armed” to process online payments so you’re basically left stranded.
Until recently, in late-2014,
a petition was written against PayPal to add support for Nigeria to its platform after years of segregation for the sins of people who have painted Nigerians with a bad image on the internet. Actions were taken and Paypal has since then supported Nigerians
sending payments out from their registered bank debit cards on any platform that accepts making payments via Paypal.
Opening a Paypal account in Nigeria is now as easy as 1, 2, 3 if your bank is now “Fully Armed”.
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The Catch
Nigerians could make payments on any website that integrated the payment system by placing their order and checking out with Paypal. Unlike other countries, we were stripped of the full pack, instead, we were privileged with the option of only sending out payments and not receiving them. Although I think it’s fair what they’ve done to hold us back from receiving payments considering our track record and reputation abroad, how we manage sending payments will be critical to how we receive them.
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What We Need From Paypal
The same petitions that gave rise to them extending support to Nigeria are back with a petition on Change.org to “Let Nigerians receive funds with PayPal”.
In the letter petitioning Paypal, the lady is left stranded after getting a job abroad and finding out the firm required her to have a Paypal account to get paid. Quoting a part of the letter, she made a very good point why this needs to happen as soon as possible.
The internet presents willing Nigerians with opportunity. The opportunity to earn their living legitimately online. However, Paypal – the ‘industry standard’ for online payments makes this opportunity inaccessible to Nigerians
We need as many people as possible to sign this petition right now!
By signing the petition, the right people who can take the right actions will get to know about it and see the need to make this happen, by right people, I mean our local banks here in Nigeria, the CBN, and Paypal. Think of the open doors this will open to working remotely here in Nigeria and getting paid from anywhere in the world in minutes
For the tech industry, developers in Nigeria stand to gain a lot, as integrating Paypal payments in apps paves the way in them getting the reward for their hard work. You can help by
signing the petition here.
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This article was first published on 19th April 2016
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