Introduction
Bank transfers are a major part of the African payment ecosystem, especially in Nigeria. In 2011, Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) developed NIBSS Instant Payments (NIP), to spearhead the adoption of bank transfers.
NIP is an account-number-based, online, real-time interbank payment solution that guarantees instant value to the beneficiary.
NIP is what allows you to send money with your GTBank app to your friend who uses Zenith Bank, and they receive value almost instantly. That was not possible before NIP.
The NIP service began with only two commercial banks as participants, but now it is almost impossible to find a commercial bank, microfinance bank or even a mobile money operator that isn’t a participant.
This shows the value that NIP brought to the financial landscape in Nigeria and why it has continued to grow from 2011 till now.
Bank transfer payments
Bank transfers have evolved from personal preferences to the primary mode of payment for Nigerians, outpacing card transactions since 2021.
The reliability and speed of NIP technology have propelled bank transfers to the forefront of payment methods.
Businesses witness diverse use cases, with customers opting for bank transfers over traditional card payments for online transactions or in offline scenarios where cash or cards are unavailable.
This phenomenon has given rise to a pay with transfer options on every available payment channel.
Fincra’s Pay with Transfer option
At Fincra, our mission revolved around empowering merchants. Every product we create and every decision we make is made with merchants top of mind.
This is why when this company was founded in 2021, extensive research was done to find out everything we needed to solve all potential payment problems our merchants might have.
Recognising the prevalence of bank transfers in Nigeria, we designed our payment gateway to cater to this preference.
With nearly half of Nigerians opting for electronic bank transfers, our ‘Pay with Transfer’ option addresses a crucial need in the market.
For this reason, we ensure that all the products we offer work, providing you with a seamless payment collection experience at all times. This is exactly what we did with the ‘Pay with Transfer’ option on our payment gateway.
We have a success rate of 99.9% on our ‘Pay with Transfer’; Yes, you read that correctly, 99.9%. Just for the purpose of breaking things down to the simplest level, a success rate of 99.9% implies that for every 1000 ‘Pay with Transfer’ transactions attempted, at least 999 of them are successful, and most times, all 1000 of them are successful; impressive, right?
Now, this is simpler to accomplish when you process a couple of hundred transactions, but when your transaction count starts running into the millions, as we experience here at Fincra, maintaining a success rate of 99.9% is no regular feat. This is why we take so much pride in it, and why we continue to ensure that our standards never diminish.
How does it work?
The ‘Pay with Transfer’ option is possible due to our virtual account technology; we create a virtual account for our merchants.
Virtual accounts seamlessly integrate into our payment gateway, which is available on all our collection features, including Checkout and Payment links.
It is a really simple and straightforward process for your customers. When customers choose this option, they get a temporary account number they can manually make a transfer to, primarily via mobile or online banking.
For the business, Fincra generates a virtual account tied to the customer and the transaction for the customer to make payment.
The customers indicate that they have made payments while the system confirms the transactions.
The system returns a successful transaction notification once the business receives the payment. Businesses receive instant settlement on their preferred settlement destination, either their bank account or their Fincra balance. If your preferred destination is your Fincra balance, you can check your dashboard immediately and see the updated balance.
Looking forward
Pay with Transfer’ represents the cornerstone of payment methods for Nigerians, enhancing customer experience and driving business growth.
Businesses keen on optimising their payment options and revenue streams can leverage Fincra’s innovative solutions by creating an account to start receiving bank transfer payments seamlessly.
Unlock the potential of bank transfer payments with Fincra and elevate your business transactions to new heights.