Business transactions have become increasingly dominant on the internet these days. It is no wonder then at all, that online payments systems have become very popular in the past few years. There are many such systems right now, but one of the most popular of them all is PayPal.
PayPal
PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American company which effectively operates a worldwide online payments system. The company’s payment system is known to be one of the most trusted supporters of global online money transfers. It also serves as an electronic alternative to the age-long, traditional paper methods such as money orders and cheques.
PayPal is widely renowned for operating as a payment processor for many people and companies including auction sites, online vendors, and other commercial users. The service, of course, is not free to use – the company charges a fee in exchange for the benefits users enjoy.
PayPal was founded in 1998 as Confinity. After having their initial public offering in 2002, the company finally became a subsidiary which was wholly owned by eBay. This happened later that same year.
Many years later in 2014, eBay revealed that it had begun plans to spin-off PayPal into an independent company. This grand plan of eBay was finally completed the next year, on July 18, 2015.
PayPal has since grown to become one of the world’s most used online payment system and it services many countries around the planet. The service is even multilingual and many countries can both receive and make payments through it.
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PayPal Nigeria
Even though PayPal had become very famous around the world as a payment system, the company refused to extend their services to Nigeria for a long time. This was quite frustrating because many Nigerians were doing businesses online and needed to use an online payment system as safe and reliable as PayPal.
This restriction on Nigeria by PayPal was partly because of the country’s bad reputation of harbouring many scammers. Over the years, dubious Nigerians have succeeded in scamming foreigners of thousand of dollars. PayPal was only threading carefully on delicate ground.
However, when the cry became really loud, PayPal finally allowed Nigerians to own and use their accounts in Nigeria. The announcement was made in 2014.
This was good news to all who received it. Nigerians were ecstatic. They could now safely make transactions online without being scared of losing money.
How To Open PayPal Accounts In Nigeria
You can now open an account. Below are steps on how to do it.
– Go to The Site
To start with, just visit www.paypal.com/ng on your browser. This is where it all begins
– Sign Up
When the site opens up to you, go ahead and click on ‘Sign Up’ and watch what happens next
– Select Your Account Type
After you click on ‘Sign Up’, you will see two options for you to chose from – Personal or Business Account. A personal account, as the name implies, is meant for you to operate personal financial transactions. The ‘Business’ however is meant for you to open if you have a business you operate. Go for the ‘Personal’ as a first timer.
– Provide Your Email
After you have clicked on ‘Personal’, just go ahead and click on ‘Continue’. When you do this, you will see ‘Nigeria’ in the drop down including the space for your email address and password. Go ahead and fill in the spaces with the email address you have and the password you want to use.
Of course, make sure that the password you choose will be one you can remember.
– Provide Your Bio
After providing your email and choosing your password, you will be directed to the page where you will provide some other details such as your name, date of birth, phone number and address.
Be careful when filling in your address. The address has to match the one you gave when you opened your bank account.
– Provide Your Card Details
When you have provided details about yourself and have given your address, you will be directed to where you have to provide your debit card details. Here you will have to provide your card number, the last 3 digits at the back of the card and the expiry date on it.
– Verify Your Account
After filling in your card details, you will be asked to go to your email and check a message from PayPal containing a link that will help you verify your account. Open the message and click on the link to verify and that’s it. You’re on PayPal.
So, Can Nigerians Now Make And Receive Payments Via PayPal?
Well, there is some bad news. Even though PayPal now allows Nigerians to own and operate PayPal accounts, the company has placed some restrictions on Nigeria.
According to the PayPal policy, Nigerians can only MAKE payment with their PayPal accounts but cannot RECEIVE payments through it. This means that the only thing they can do with their PayPal accounts is shop online and send money out but cannot get money sent to them.
This was a big blow. The new policy was not what Nigerians expected at all.
Is There A Way Out?
There have been a lot of petitions online for PayPal to let Nigerians receive payments in Nigeria but for now, there is no ‘green light’ from the company. There is no indication that this is going to happen soon.
However, there are other services besides PayPal that can enable you transfer and receive funds. Some of them are:
– Western Union Money Transfer;
– Bank Wire Transfer and some others.
– Skrill;
– 2Checkout;
– Payoneer Mastercard;
– Cheque;
Some of these services may not be as popular, easy to use or efficient as PayPal just yet but they are there to help you out just the same.
A Note Of Caution.
There are many articles online on how to RECEIVE payments via PayPal in Nigeria but be careful with believing them. Some of these so-called methods are not tested and trusted. Many are illegal.
In fact, there have been reports of people who have had their PayPal accounts blocked with all the monies locked inside after they tried employing tricks to receive money in Nigeria via PayPal.
You may want to save yourself the stress of going through all that.
