Nigeria has historically set the example; Developing E-Pay Economy

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Nigeria has historically set the example for other African nations in terms of mobile adoption, internet infrastructure proliferation, and e-commerce. But the country’s mobile payment market is still in its nascent stages, despite the landscape of mobile users ripe for e-pay projects. Paga, the company at the forefront of the mobile payment market in Nigeria, has been making some investment-based moves towards elevating Nigeria’s e-pay economy, but the government is looking at ways to make it part of daily life as well.


Last week, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced new plans to broaden its e-payment systems and proliferate mobile payments and cashless infrastructure. BizTech Africa reported that the CBN said the government is considering the introduction of mobile point of sale terminals running on carrier networks, aimed at making transactions easier. The government has started working with carriers, and targets making e-payment reliable despite varying wireless signal strength.

This work between government and carrier comes in tandem with financial investment from Paga which recently announced its completion of $13 million in series B financing. The company has been working to integrate itself with vendors and businesses so that Paga is the e-pay system through those merchants’ websites. Quartz reports that the company has grown its agent network to almost 9,000 and has handled transactions worth over a billion dollars. Its competition would be an entity like PayPal, but the youth of Nigeria’s e-pay market gives Paga the opportunity to establish itself broadly.

These moves to drive mobile payment schemes would only boost Nigeria’s already-profitable internet retail market. Jumia, one of Africa’s largest online shopping sites, is based in Nigeria and began its highly successful trajectory there. It has won awards in customer service and has set the stage for the promise of online retail in Africa, particularly as other countries expand their mobile user populations. As of 2015, Jumia has warehouses in 10 other countries: Egypt, Morocco, Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon, United Kingdom, Tanzania and Angola.

It is only a matter of time before Nigeria’s booming internet business sector adopts the mobile payment technologies needed to integrate the two. Indeed, as Africa’s largest mobile market, with high rates of mobile internet penetration, the integration seems like a no brainer. There have been obstacles to bolstering e-commerce, wireless reliability among them. But hopefully the aforementioned collaborations and investments will prove to elevate Nigeria’s e-payment market.

Source: blouinnews.com

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