How to Open Paypal Account and Verify it With a Nigerian Bank Card

This post has been updated to be still relevant in 2021 and beyond.

On Monday 16th June 2014…

It was announced that the Paypal payment service will be available to Nigeria and 9 other countries which have been denied access to use the service since its inception.

Immediately after the news was published on REUTERS, it went viral all across social media channels, emails, and even mobile channels among Nigerians.

On Tuesday 17th June 2014 Paypal payment service was made available to Nigerians as promised.

For over a week after Paypal included Nigeria, I didn’t open a Nigerian Paypal account for reasons I will tell you some days to come. Make sure you watch out for that.

When I decided to open one for myself, I made up my mind to document the process as I open and verify it and that’s why you’re reading this post. Now that I have opened one, I’m going to show you how did it, what went wrong or right in the process.

I used both Naira Visa and MasterCard in the process but only one worked successfully. But before I tell which one worked, let me take you through the process first:

The first step is…

Go to: www.paypal.com/ng

Then click on Sign up Free as it should be displayed on the page.

After that, you will be led to the following page with that click or one more.

The page should automatically display Nigeria as shown below:

If Nigeria is not displayed, just click on the small arrow facing down to display the list of countries and look for Nigeria

Then, click on the Open an account button after which you will be taken to the page where to enter your information.

The information required is simple and self-explanatory.

When I was opening mine there was an opportunity to link my card at the bottom page. But as I type this post now, I noticed, it’s no more there. If you find it there when you reading this post, I advise you to use a MasterCard from any Nigeria Bank or Visa as Verve ATM cards are not accepted.

Note: CSC is the 3 digit number at the back of your card.

But if the option to link your card is not here don’t worry…

Just click on Agree and Create Account button after you have entered your information.

If all went well, you should be taken to the following page where you will be asked to enter a security code as shown below:

Just enter it as indicted in the image that is displayed for you and click on Continue page.

Don’t forget we are in Nigeria, if your network hasn’t disappeared, you will find yourself on the following page:

Just click on Go To My Account

If all has been going well, you should now have a legal Paypal account as a Nigerian and you should now be on a page where you see your name like I saw mine as shown below:

The next step is to verify your Paypal account.

To do that, first, go to your email account,  look for the welcome email from Paypal.

Inside the email click on the provided activation link.

A new page will open that will request you should enter your password again. Do that, and then follow the instructions below to verify your account:

Click on get Verified as circled red in the above image:

And you should be taken to the following page:

If you have already linked your card when you were entering your information as I did in my own case, just click on the continue button at the bottom to continue but if not look for the option to link your card and click on it to add your card.

Don’t forget that CSC is the 3 digit numbers at the back of your card

When I was creating my own account. I used UBA Naira Visa Card and below is the error message I got when I clicked on continue to verify my account. See it circled in red below:

After I have tried it several times, I still got the same error message. So I had to change the card from UBA Visa Card I earlier used to my GTB Naira MasterCard. If you also need that, just go to the Get Verified option again and click on Link a New Card to add another card.

After I did that, which worked successfully as I was taken to the following page when I clicked on continue again to verify my card:

The above page is requesting that I should enter a code [like 1234 above] from a message my bank will send to me which I should receive in 2-3days time.

But GTBank did wonder, I receive the message in less than 20minutes from the bank.

Below is the screenshot from the message;

As you can see, the code I needed to verify my account is 9185 as circled above

The next was I completed the verification process as follows:

Once you receive the alert from your bank. Log in to your account and click on Get Verified, when you’re directed to the next page, just click on a link that says Enter Paypal Code.

And you will be taken to the following page:

Enter the Code in the space circled 1. above and click on Confirm Card as circled as 2 above

Then you should be taken to the following page:

That’s all, if you follow these process, you should now have a Nigerian verified Paypal account like mine as shown below:

You can now use your Paypal account to make payments from Nigeria without a ban on sites that accept Paypal as a method of payment. You don’t even need to worry about funding the Paypal account as your debit card is linked to the Paypal account.

For now, PayPal doesn’t allow you to receive payment with your Nigerian Paypal account, you can only use it for payments. I remember I used to pay people as high as N220 per dollar when USD/Naira was around N150 for them to help me make Paypal payments. Now that is gone, we hope Paypal activates all the functionalities for us soon so we also receive payment with a Nigerian Paypal account.

But for now, just buy

Talk Soon

Olusola

PS: That same day I received another alert from UBA bank that my card has been charged N172.47 on Paypal even though the card didn’t work until I removed it.  I don’t know what for. It’s not even up to $1.95 that Paypal should have charged if the card worked. Below is the message

PPS: Latest 2017, 2021, and beyond Updates: Most banks including GTB have been banning their Naira Master or Visa cards from working with Paypal. The bank I know that still allows its card for verification and buying online with a Nigerian Paypal account is Access Bank through its Naira Visa Card.

But due to the CBN directive, you can only spend a maximum of $100 per month with this visa card. The only option that gives you unlimited spending online with PayPal is to use Dollar Visa or Mastercard with a domiciliary account. I’m personally using GTB Dollar Mastercard. 

I learned that Access Bank also offers one that works great. But you will need to open a Domiciliary account with either of these banks to one.

PPPS: Have you opened and verified your own Paypal account? Which bank card did you use? What went wrong or right. Please, share with us in the comment box below.

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