PayPal set to expand services to Nigeria, Zimbabwe and more

The online payment company, PayPal, has stated that it has finalised its plans to offer its services to ten new countries this week. The move will allow countries like Nigeria to use the facility as an alternate option in order to make payment via Personal Computers or mobile devices.

Rupert Keeley, executive in charge of the Europe Middle East and Africa, EMEA region of PayPal, disclosed this in an interview to allAfrica.com this week.

PayPal had previously excluded Nigeria from the use of its services due to concerns of fraud; however, by including the additional countries, PayPal will now services 203 countries in total.

Keeley stated that, “Starting on Tuesday, consumers in Nigeria, along with nine other markets in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America will be able to make payments through PayPal. PayPal has been going through a period of reinvention, refreshing many of its services to make them easier to use on mobile phones, allowing us to expand into fast-developing markets.”

As soon as the service goes live consumers with access to the internet and who have a bank card authorised for online usage will be able to signup for a PayPal account. This will ultimately give consumers access to millions of websites worldwide in order to make purchases or payments.

PayPal has over 148 million active accounts across the globe. “We think we can give our sellers selling into this market a great deal of reassurance,” noted Keeley, adding that, “PayPal does not yet cover peer-to-peer transactions, which allow consumers to send money to other consumers. It has not yet enabled local merchants in the new markets to receive payments, nor is it offering other forms of banking services,” added Keeley.

According to research done by Euromonitor International, a total of 80 million Internet users will gain access to PayPal global services this week, including those is five European markets – Belarus, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco and Montenegro, four in the African nations of Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Zimbabwe, as well as Paraguay.

MasterCard Inc. has stated that it was working with the Nigerian government on a pilot to overlay payment technology on a new national identity card.