How to receive international payments as a Nigerian small business

Collecting International payments for your products can be a chore, especially for small and medium-scale enterprise businesses in Nigeria. With the increase in globalisation, international trade is much more accessible and easier for small businesses.

Innovations in communication through the advent of the internet and transportation through the presence of global logistics companies have paved the way for globalisation. Yet, many small businesses, especially in Nigeria and Africa, struggle with a fundamental aspect of business: exchanging money for goods and services.

Many small businesses in Nigeria and Africa are restricted from collecting payments internationally. Government restrictions on international payments in Nigeria limited many businesses and denied them profit. Exchange rates affect the customer trying to pay for goods and the business owner trying to collect the goods.

Most International payments also come with tracking problems. Customers who buy internationally have no insight into if or when their payments have been delivered into the vendor’s bank account, and the vendor has no view into the status of the payments.

Fraud has also been an issue in transacting internationally for businesses. Trust is essential for the customer and the business owner when doing business. 

QShop was built to change how small businesses interact with technology, help struggling entrepreneurs grow their businesses, and increase revenue streams. One of the best features we implemented is Stripe. 

We implemented Stripe to resolve these issues by streamlining the process and bringing transparency and speed to transactions between business owners and their customers, thus solving important cash flow issues.

What Is Stripe, and How Does It Work?

Stripe is an international payment service provider that will allow you to accept payments in 100+ currencies from anywhere in the world. So you can forget about all those failed card payments from your international customers.

First, the customer provides their debit or credit card information to Stripe. Then, Stripe uses those card details to enter their payment gateway, which encrypts the data. Stripe then sends that data to the acquirer, a bank that will process the transaction on the business owner’s behalf.

How does Stripe improve businesses on QShop?

Stripe helps you grow your business beyond your country and process orders for customers anywhere in the world without the stress of opening bank accounts in every country you sell to.

Stripe supports payments in over 100 currencies, so we have implemented Stripe to help you receive payments from international customers in any currency. e.g. dollars, euros, pounds.

Is Stripe safe to use for International payments?

Any small business owner who accepts online payments can use Stripe. Stripe encrypts all customers’ card numbers and stores decryption information separately, which means Stripe can’t see anyone’s card numbers.

We recently introduced Providus Bank to ensure vendors get credit alerts in an hour. We also implemented Stripe to remove all the headaches associated with region-specific challenges in markets where businesses don’t have banking relationships or infrastructure.

As always, QShop has got you covered by providing various payment options for your customers by partnering with the best payment providers, including Providus, Paystack, Flutterwave and Stripe for international payments.