Mobile Payments: Driving Nigeria's E-commerce Sector to Global Success

Finance has been one of the most relevant sectors of human endeavor for millennia, as people have sought to trade products and services of all kinds. It has also extended into the various ways through which people save and invest their funds. Technology, and specifically, computer-based technology, is more recent but no less important. It has revolutionized all aspects of human life, including finance, and continues to do so daily. The merger of both sectors is what constitutes the Fintech industry today. This includes everything from Automatic Teller Machines to virtual cards, digital wallets, Non-fungible tokens, and cryptocurrency. 

Of all of those innovations, however, the most important one worldwide; and especially for Nigerians, is mobile payments. Internet-based payments are important worldwide. In Nigeria where most people are connected to the internet via their mobile phones, however, effective mobile payments are a particularly crucial necessity. People want to be able to shop from their favorite stores and make payments to their friends and family without having to visit a bank or go through cumbersome processes. 

At the moment, the payments landscape in Nigeria and many African markets are dominated by traditional players such as banks and telecommunication companies. They typically offer mobile payments as part of their traditional services. This means that they can leverage their existing customer base, but it also means that they are typically not as innovative. Being able to make payments from one bank account to another through USSD or a mobile, for example, does not solve the problem of being able to make purchases for items seamlessly without the need to wait for confirmation from the recipient’s bank. As more people begin to use mobile payments, the issue of security also becomes more prominent. Traditional solutions are simply not working effectively enough, as cases of stolen phones being used to make fraudulent payments are commonplace.

Going forward, the landscape of mobile payments will evolve and expand to include both online and offline commerce. Traditional marketplaces and social media vendors will need means by which they can receive funds in a fast yet secure manner. That will allow them to avoid the abandonment of purchases by customers frustrated by complex processes, but still, avoid the risks of fraud. Solutions, such as Pass, can be integrated into websites to allow customers to pay for goods across various e-commerce platforms. This makes it unnecessary for them to expose their card details each time, thus reducing the risk and promoting the adoption of e-commerce. That increase in adoption will, in turn, lead to a boost in e-commerce revenue, thus benefiting the economy at large.