Bank transfer vs card payments: what should Nigerian businesses use?

Nigerian customers pay in two dominant ways: cards and bank transfers. The right answer for your business is usually "both" — but knowing the trade-offs helps you optimise.

Cards

Pros: familiar, one-tap on saved cards, great for recurring billing. Cons: more failure points (OTP, insufficient funds, bank downtime), and a small risk of chargebacks.

Cards shine for subscriptions and repeat customers because you can save the authorization and re-charge with one call.

Bank transfers

Pros: extremely high trust in Nigeria, no card required, and inflows to a dedicated NUBAN are instant. Cons: the customer has to switch to their banking app, and there's nothing to "re-charge" later — a transfer is one-time.

Transfers shine for larger one-off amounts and customers without working cards.

The conversion angle

Offering only one method leaves money on the table. A customer whose card fails will often complete a transfer instead. Presenting both on checkout is the single easiest conversion win.

The cost angle

With a flat, capped fee model (like 1.5% capped at ₦2,000), large transactions are cheap either way — the cap protects you. For small tickets, the percentage matters more than the rail.

Our recommendation

Enable both. Default to the customer's preference, and use bank transfer as the fallback when a card fails. You'll capture more sales without any extra work.