Paystack– the African fintech company powering and processing modern payments for businesses in Africa, today, announced the launch of a new payment channel on its platform –”Pay with Apple Pay”. Businesses based in Nigeria can now accept Apple Pay on Paystack, and the company, in a statement, described the integration as “the fastest, secure way for Nigerian businesses to accept international payments.”
Apple Pay provides users with a secure and private way to pay on their iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and Macbooks. The mobile payments and digital wallet services have been present in almost every continent since 2014, but they only penetrated into Africa in March this year, via South Africa. Users in the country with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express cards can access the payment service from five banks — Nedbank, Absa, FirstRand Bank, Investec, and Discovery.
While the expansion to South Africa indicated Apple’s keen interest in increasing its reach in sub-Saharan Africa, the American tech major did not say if it would expand to other countries in Africa making headway in the adoption of digital payments; such as Nigeria and Kenya. However, rather than waiting for Apple’s expansion to these “feasible countries”, Paystack has taken the leap to integrate the payment service on its platform –a very smart move to be frank. Paystack is now the first payment platform in Nigeria to support Apple Pay. This is a remarkable achievement as it gives Nigerian businesses access to millions of Apple Pay users in the more than 60 countries where the payments service is active. They can accept payments made through any of the Paystack-hosted Commerce tools –Paystack Storefronts or Invoices, and via multiple payment channels including cards, mobile money, USSD, QR codes, and EFT.
But what happens to Paystack if Apple were to extend Apple pay to Nigeria? Paystack is optimistic that it would remain unaffected. This is because Apple’s iOS commands only about 7.75 percent of the Nigerian mobile operating system, compared to Android which has more than 87 percent of the market. And why are these statistics important? The answer is simple– Apple provides Apple Pay on only its devices.
Khadijah Abu, the head of product expansion at Paystack, said that the integration with Apple Pay is the platform’s first global payment channel integration and that Paystack intended to integrate more global payment channels in the future. She added that Paystack integrated with Apple Pay to give its merchants and their customers more payment choices, as well as to help merchants reach a larger audience.
Paystack also has plans of replicating the integration in South Africa and Ghana. “We’re seeing impressive growth in South Africa, with thousands of new businesses of all sizes joining us every month,” Khadijah Abu said, regarding Paystack’s progress in the country. “Apple Pay is super convenient and secure, and while we’re beginning with Nigeria, we aim to bring this payment channel to all our markets,” she added.
Paystack’s new payment channel is expected to make it significantly easier for merchants to access and sell to international customers. With the integration of Apple Pay on its platform, it is also expected that the success rates of international transactions on Paystack would improve significantly.
Ibhadojemu Lucky Emmanuel is a graduate of Education and Economics from the University of Benin. He has a passion for tech and business and has been writing professionally for over a period of five years. He's written across various topics and segments and knew tech-business was it when he first stumbled on it. He has a great passion for music and arts, and wants to visit as many countries as he can someday.
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