When the news about PayPal launching its operations in Nigeria hit the social media it was a big deal, most Nigerian entrepreneurs were excited and couldn’t wait to join the platform. The reason is simple PayPal has set a global standard in payment transfer for online transactions. It offers the safest, fastest and easiest way of sending and receiving instant money for delivery of goods and service.
PayPal entry into the Nigerian online/e-commerce eco-system is a welcomed development that will go a long way to foster international transactions in more ways than we can imagine particularly for small businesses and our teeming unemployed youth who will get the opportunity to sell their skills online and receive their reward through a reliable payment system.
However, the online payment processor has announced that only its payment service will be available to the Nigeria market, it’s my hope that before long we will be able to take advantage of the full functionality of the PayPal platform. If fully functional, PayPal can further entrench and speed up the process of embracing cashless policy among our people especially in the urban centers, among other advantages it will help small businesses and start-ups through:
- Provision of reliable payment infrastructure that has a global benchmark, no doubt this will make selling local services and goods beyond our border easy.
- Helping to aggregate supply and demand in the local arena, you will be surprised more people will use it in local transactions because of the guaranty it offers.
- Facilitating market processes.
- Giving people outside the country the confidence they need to trust companies from Nigeria.
- Stabilizing the needs of buyers and sellers or users and customers.
- Boosting the confidence in the growth of the e-commerce arena.
However, there is the challenge of PayPal currently only allowing us to pay for services and not providing Nigerian users the opportunity to receive payment, but hopefully we will get to that point very soon. The bulk of PayPal benefit relies on our ability to receive funds through PayPal rather than just being able to send fund out through PayPal alone. Presently, it’s unhealthy for our economy to only send money out and not receive in return.
How will #PayPal entrance impact small business & global opportunities in Nigeria? Join our online discussion @ITRDNInnovates
