Online payment gateways in Nigeria make it simple for companies and people to accept payments online using a variety of channels or methods, including debit cards, bank transfers, direct debits from bank accounts, USSD, mobile money, and digital wallets.
Selecting payment gateways in Nigeria can be difficult. However, the task can be completed using the popular and widely used online payment gateways in Nigeria known to top merchants and businesses.
You will require trustworthy online payment gateways in Nigeria if you intend to launch an e-commerce website, manage an online subscription business, or sell any service or product that requires you to collect payment online.
With increasing real-time digital payment processing in Nigeria, the most populous black nation, there is a sizable market for online payments and, as such, an ever-growing e-commerce market.
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What is a Payment Gateway?
A payment gateway is a service that makes it easier for businesses to accept credit card payments from their clients; it can also be seen as an internet business that manages credit card transaction processing. To enter their personal and credit card information, customers must be sent to the payment gateway’s website after making a purchase.
The transaction will be finished once this information has been confirmed and returned to the company’s website. Independent businesses or corporations like Visa or Mastercard can offer payment gateways.
Payment gateways handle credit card processing for online shops and physical retailers that conduct offline transactions via terminals with magnetic strips or chip readers.
Why Is It Important to Have an Online Payment Gateway?
You must have thought, “Why do we have online payment platforms? Are they required? Your company needs an Internet payment platform just as much as anything else. After all, your ultimate goal is to end the day with money in hand from your clients and consumers.
Here are the top seven justifications why your company ought to incorporate a payment gateway:
- It provides a safe and convenient solution to save customers’ credit card information.
- Low-cost transactions are processed quickly and effortlessly.
- Simple to set up for your company
- Facilitates the transfer and receipt of payments
- Quick as a flash, no more waiting hours to pay or check out.
- Quick and efficient – simple to set up.
- Business-friendly
Factors To Consider When Selecting Payment Gateways In Nigeria
Recall your reaction the last time you had to wait for a vendor to confirm a transaction or, more likely, the last time your payment was late.
These annoyances might occasionally be attributed to a company’s payment gateway. In this part, we’ll review some things to consider when selecting a payment gateway.
- A Variety of Payment Options: Consumers enjoy having options. If you run a website, offering various payment options on the checkout page is a terrific approach to improve the user experience for your visitors. For your business to succeed and satisfy your consumers, you must select a payment gateway that enables them to pay you on your website using a variety of methods.
- Reliable Customer Support: When clients have issues using your website to make a payment, they either contact you for assistance or abandon the cart, which can be detrimental to your business. Another crucial aspect many online retailers should not ignore when selecting payment gateways in Nigeria is ensuring customer assistance is dependable and available around the clock.
A good payment gateway provider should offer several options for customers to get in touch with them and should also have a customer support team on call who can answer any questions a consumer or a merchant may have about payments.
- Security: You should consider selecting payment gateways in Nigeria that offer buyer and merchant safety during online transactions. The likelihood of becoming a victim of fraud and chargebacks increases as more companies embrace having an online presence; these can have a considerable negative impact on the company.
Your clients’ sensitive information during online transactions should be protected by a good payment gateway provider’s rigorous security requirements. Customers should feel secure knowing that their private information won’t be disclosed to any outside parties when they shop on your website.
- Pricing: Although payment gateway providers offer great support to businesses, their services do not come without a cost, so keep this in mind as you select a provider for your company. Most payment gateways in Nigeria have a range of costs that merchants must pay for their services. These fees could be startup, transaction, or monthly charges. It’s crucial to pick a payment gateway supplier whose prices won’t harm your company over time.
Top Payment Gateways in Nigeria
Here is a list of 10 payment gateways in Nigeria to assist you in deciding which ones you should use to take payments from anywhere in the world:
1. Paystack:
One of Nigeria’s top online payment gateways is Paystack, which more than 80,000 customers use to accept payments for their businesses. Five different currencies, including the naira, USD, Ghanaian Cedis, Kenyan Shilling, and Rand, are available for merchants using Paystack.
Additionally, there are payment methods such as credit cards, bank accounts, USSD, point-of-sale, Visa QR, mobile money, and bank transfer. Along with processing recurring payments, customers also receive virtual accounts.
While authorized educational institutions are charged a set price, merchants who handle large transactions may also be eligible for discounts. Your cash flow is barely impacted because settlement happens the day following payments are made.
Features
- Cost-free installation. 1.5% plus 100 for domestic transactions, 3.9% plus 100 for foreign transactions
- Transaction success rate: around 100%
- Settlement: the following day
- Options for payment include credit card, bank account, USSD, PoS, Apple Pay, mobile money, and Visa QR.
- Level 1 PCI-DSS compliance with security
- Recurring billing is available.
2. SeerBit:
Merchants without websites or online businesses can share payment links with their consumers, thanks to SeerBit. Merchants receive a checkout page and have access to several payment options, including mobile money, bank transfers, point of sale (PoS), USSD, bank accounts, and credit cards.
Additionally, it is integrated with Wix, Magento, and WooCommerce. Its transaction settlement time is one day, just like Paystack’s. Using SeerBit’s white-label solution, businesses can provide payment and digital banking solutions.
If you do business with consumers from other countries, SeerBit has you covered. SeerBit merchants may accept payments in 13 different currencies, including GBP, CAD, and USD.
Features
- Cost: Free; 1.5% of domestic transactions, 3.8% of foreign transactions; no setup expenses
- Rate of successful transactions: Unknown
- Settlement: the following day
- Direct debit, bank transfer, PoS, USSD, bank account, card, and mobile money are all acceptable forms of payment.
- Level 1 PCI-DSS compliance with security
- Recurring billing is available.
3. Flutterwave:
Over 20 different currencies can be accepted by businesses thanks to Flutterwave, which operates in 11 different nations. It accepts card payments, bank transfers, mobile money, PoS, Visa QR, and bank accounts.
Customers of Flutterwave are provided a payment link that enables businesses to accept payments online without having a website. However, they can make it simpler by setting up an online store. Additionally, Shopify, Joomla, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and Ecwid connection is available to online retailers.
Features
- Cost: 1.4% for domestic transactions, 3.8% for foreign transactions
- The success rate of transactions: N/A
- Time for settlement: 24 hours
- Payment choices include bank transfers, bank accounts, mobile money, point-of-sale systems, Visa QR cards, etc.
- Security: Compliant with PA DSS and PCI DSS
- Billing cycles: Only for card payments
4. Voguepay:
Voguepay is an online payment gateway in Nigeria that enables anyone to collect and receive payments from anywhere in the world. Users of Voguepay can also help with auto-withdrawal on their accounts.
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This online payment gateway offers free plugins for simple integration for the most well-known website builders. Voguepay includes contribution and integration API buttons along with purchase links and buttons.
Features
- VoguePay Setup Fee: N1500 (with a certificate from the Corporate Affairs Commission) and N2500 (with official identification).
- VoguePay charges for local cards are 1.5% + 30 kobo.
- VoguePay charges 3.8% plus 0.50 of the currency transaction for international cards.
- Cards Accepted: Verve, MasterCard, and Visa
- Support for Payments through Subscription: N/A
5. Monnify:
One of the biggest fintech businesses in Nigeria, Moniepoint, created a payment gateway called Monnify. Monnify is the payment gateway for companies including Bankly, Thrive Agriculture, and Cowrywise.
Customers of Monnify have a variety of flexible settlement alternatives. Users can get paid daily, twice daily, or instantly; however, payments are generally processed within 24 hours. It currently only offers a checkout option and virtual accounts for consumers who are located within Nigeria, where it processes payments.
Features
- Cost: 1.5%
- Rate of successful transactions: Unknown
- Settlement: the following day
- Options for payment: card, USSD, and online transfer
- Security: complies with PCI DSS
- Recurring charges: N/A
6. Remita:
In Nigeria, Remita is one of the most reliable methods for sending and receiving money. Many educational institutions in Nigeria frequently employ Remita.
You can receive money with Remita in several methods, the first of which is a checkout. Customers can send you money by making a simple bank transfer or entering their card information during the checkout process.
The good news in this situation is that Remita offers several different card alternatives, increasing the possibility that more customers will be able to purchase from you. Remita creates an invoice as evidence of the transactions for both parties once payment has been received.
Remita provides a method of determining whether payments are legitimate, even immediately after costs.
Features
- Cost: 2% fee with a maximum of 2,500; international cards incur an additional 2% fee.
- The success rate of transactions: N/A
- Settlement: the following day
- USSD transactions, debit/credit cards, PoS terminals, and bank transfers are available as payment methods.
- Safety: N/A
- Recurring billing is available.
7. Interswitch:
Interswitch is a major player in the Nigerian financial services industry. Businesses like Dominos and BetKing use Interswitch, one of the nation’s first finance providers, and setting up an account with Interswitch is free.
No matter where the payment was made, settlement takes place the next day in naira; its APIs can be incorporated into websites and mobile applications. Its payment link feature allows users without websites to make money; you can use Interswitch to accept recurring payments if your line of work necessitates it.
Features
- Cost: 1.5% for domestic transactions (limited to 2,000), 3.8% for foreign transactions
- The success rate of transactions: N/A
- Settlement: the following day
- Options for payment: USSD, card, bank transfer, and QR code
- Security: complies with PCI DSS
- Recurring billing is available.
READ ALSO: Best Education Apps For Students In Nigeria
8. PayU:
Thanks to PayU, a Nigerian online payment gateway, you may collect consumer payments safely and conveniently. Facebook uses PayU to take prices in Nigeria.
The customer’s email address or phone number is all you need to collect payment from them once you’ve created an account with PayU. After that, the consumer gets a payment link that makes using a debit or credit card simple.
Features
- No setup fees.
- Processing payments in many currencies.
- Financial analytics.
- Invoices.
- Different payment types.
- There is no paperwork.
- One-time Transaction Fee.
- Data Management for Transactions
9. Squad:
Squad, a payment gateway offered by HabariPay, a Guaranty Trust Holding Company subsidiary, was one of the most recent players to enter the payments sector when it was introduced in 2022. Squad does not impose a separate setup fee or transaction cost for all accepted payment methods.
Although payments are made to merchants within 24 hours of completion, Squad is only available in Nigeria. For companies that require recurring payments, the lack of support for recurrent billing could be a concern.
Features
- Costs for virtual accounts are 0.1%, USSD and payment links are 1%, overseas payments made using a payment link are 3.5%, and Squad POS transactions are 0.25%.
- The success rate of transactions: N/A
- Settlement: the following day
- Payment options include cards, transfers, and USSD.
- Security: complies with PCI DSS
- Recurring billing is available.
10. DPO:
Over 100,000 companies, including Glovo, Expedia, DHL, and Radisson Blu, use a payment gateway from The DPO Group. The presence of DPO in 23 nations in Africa and the Middle East is one of its most notable qualities. For business owners looking to offer their services to consumers in these areas, this eliminates the payment issues.
Users of DPO’s dynamic currency conversion see a recognizable currency while making payments and paying in their local currencies. Whether you have a website or not, your customers can still pay you using DPO’s payment buttons. The setup fee that DPO originally levied has since been discontinued.
Features
- Price: N/A
- The success rate of transactions: N/A
- Settlement period: 24 hours (for some users, in real-time)
- Options for payment: USSD, QR code, and mobile money
- Security: complies with PCI DSS
- Recurring billing is available.
Summary
Today, every business owner wants to build the finest user experience possible to stand out from the fierce competition in their sector. In this article, we’ve talked about Nigeria’s top online payment gateways. You’re safe using any of the ones we’ve listed above because they’re the best.
These gateways’ integration requires no technical knowledge at all. Some need you to copy and paste a few lines of code, while others want you to download a plugin.
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FAQ’s
Which is cheaper, Flutterwave or Paystack?
Flutterwave imposes a transaction fee of 3.8% for international transactions. Paystack is significantly less expensive than Flutterwave for local transactions, although Flutterwave is marginally less expensive for international transactions.
What is the alternative term for a payment gateway?
Among these are e-commerce platforms, payment processors, shipping services, and tools for preventing fraud. However, the phrases payment gateway and payment processor (PSP – Payment Service Provider) are sometimes used interchangeably when referring to payment providers.