Paystack and Shopify Expand Ecommerce Market for Nigerians

African fintech startup Paystack has opened up the e-commerce market for tens of thousands of Nigerian online retailers after launching a payment solution for global commerce platform Shopify.

Paystack, based in Lagos and San Francisco, is a revolutionary payment system that allows African businesses to accept payments from customers all around the world, while Shopify is a Canadian market leader providing software tools for online retailers including storefronts, payment processing, and checkout apps.

The e-commerce giant were keen to enter the Nigerian market (Africa’s biggest economy), but required a payment gateway capable of allowing Nigerian merchants to receive payments from customers using local and international payment methods – and this is where Paystack has stepped in. Their new integration system for Shopify allows Nigerian merchants to accept all payment methods from anyone, anywhere in the world.

‘Working with Shopify to enable them to navigate the splintered world that is Nigerian fintech and online payments has been a brilliant experience for the Paystack team,’ Ezra Olubi, Paystack Co-founder and CTO says. ‘We’ve long admired Shopify as an online merchant giant – their unique offering, global reach, product range and their ability to power a whole generation of online sellers is remarkable.’

Joel Bronkowski, Strategic Partnerships, EMEA at Shopify adds: ‘We’re thrilled with the opportunity in Nigeria and Paystack’s launch will further allow merchants in the area to benefit from Shopify.’

Paystack, which is part of Y Combinator’s alumni network, was launched by Ezra and Shola Akinlade in January 2016.

‘Paystack’s mission is to transform and overhaul the interaction between business and consumers, and to build a payments product for Africa to act as a catalyst for the continent’s online economy,’ Ezra says. ‘Like us, Shopify sees massive growth opportunities in Nigeria and the rest of Africa when it comes to online commerce, and the first step for unlocking the continent’s potential is to develop a safe, reliable payments infrastructure that is trusted by both merchants and customers. This launch is an exciting first step for the market.’