The central bank of Nigeria (CBN) policies especially on the foreign exchange market is killing the tech and startup communities in the country. I would use my case as an example.

I am a certified Salesforce administrator and have done several projects as voluntary or personal to boost my profile and résumé. One of my project I designed as an app using salesforce ecosystem that enabled small/ medium size companies to take daily audits of the sold goods and expensive activities and share the reports of the weekly audits via emails (automatically) to the managerial team. Showed it to a client to get a business deal.

The business owner was impressed with the design but, he's new to Salesforce and still need to understand how it work when fully deployed. So, he wanted me to give him a trial version which Salesforce provided but I melt a stumbling block when all cards to pay for the lowest subscription fee for the Salesforce got rejected. I tried for two weeks but could not subscribed. The man got tired and said next time and he's not ready to buy black market rate on a new services he will be paying for every months.

I believe, emefiele and Buhari have caused to so much pain to the tech space and startup communities. So, what do you think guys about the impact of the naira card international transaction restrictions on tech space in Nigeria?

lorenzobanks:
The central bank of Nigeria (CBN) policies especially on the foreign exchange market is killing the tech and startup communities in the country. I would use my case as an example.

I am a certified Salesforce administrator and have done several projects as voluntary or personal to boost my profile and résumé. One of my project I designed as an app using salesforce ecosystem that enabled small/ medium size companies to take daily audits of the sold goods and expensive activities and share the reports of the weekly audits via emails (automatically) to the managerial team. Showed it to a client to get a business deal.

The business owner was impressed with the design but, he's new to Salesforce and still need to understand how it work when fully deployed. So, he wanted me to give him a trial version which Salesforce provided but I melt a stumbling block when all cards to pay for the lowest subscription fee for the Salesforce got rejected. I tried for two weeks but could not subscribed. The man got tired and said next time and he's not ready to buy black market rate on a new services he will be paying for every months.

I believe, emefiele and Buhari have caused to so much pain to the tech space and startup communities. So, what do you think guys about the impact of the naira card international transaction restrictions on tech space in Nigeria?

You are a tech guy.

You don’t let stumbling blocks limit you.

Yes, Naira cards are no longer working but tech guys like you have solutions already for this mess. There are virtual dollar cards.

And when you say your client doesn’t want to buy at black market rate, pardon me but that is superfluous.

Were you quoting at 400 NGN to USD? Everyone pays at the black market rate. If he cannot buy at 740, tell him to pay you in USD or he is not ready to buy

For my Nigerian transactions, i charge in USD and collect via my USDT wallet or you transfer to my international account.

Your costs are in USD so why charge Naira?

I took some jobs when parallel was 525. It got to 900 before falling to present 740. How do you expect me to manage the monthly payments with such fluctuations?

No matter what the CBN does locally in Nigeria, you must find a way to survive because your target should be global.

truthCoder:


You are a tech guy.

You don’t let stumbling blocks limit you.

Yes, Naira cards are no longer working but tech guys like you have solutions already for this mess. There are virtual dollar cards.

And when you say your client doesn’t want to buy at black market rate, pardon me but that is superfluous.

Were you quoting at 400 NGN to USD? Everyone pays at the black market rate. If he cannot buy at 740, tell him to pay you in USD or he is not ready to buy

For my Nigerian transactions, i charge in USD and collect via my USDT wallet or you transfer to my international account.

Your costs are in USD so why charge Naira?

I took some jobs when parallel was 525. It got to 900 before falling to present 740. How do you expect me to manage the monthly payments with such fluctuations?

No matter what the CBN does locally in Nigeria, you must find a way to survive because your target should be global.

Virtual cards don't work on all services. They mostly work on the popular ones. No Nigerian virtual card works with Salesforce. Even when barter was still up It wasn't working. Thankfully you can learn with the development version but that's it.

Op find someone abroad you trust that can help you make payments.

tensazangetsu20:


Virtual cards don't work on all services. They mostly work on the popular ones. No Nigerian virtual card works with Salesforce. Even when barter was still up It wasn't working. Thankfully you can learn with the development version but that's it.

Op find someone abroad you trust that can help you make payments.

That’s interesting to hear. I use my UAE cards for almost everything and my Chipper USD card in Nigeria works flawlessly.

He can try Chipper.

Barter seems to be buggy the last time i tried it.

I would not advise using another person’s card especially a card with an ability to overdraw.

You need a prepaid card or a card that declines when balance is 0 for such subscriptions.

It is better your service goes down than for you to incur a debt of 2,000 usd on another person’s card for a poorly configured service or an unexpected high draw rate.

truthCoder:


That’s interesting to hear. I use my UAE cards for almost everything and my Chipper USD card in Nigeria works flawlessly.

He can try Chipper.

Barter seems to be buggy the last time i tried it.

Barter has stopped working. The service was cancelled indefinitely months back. If he wants to try chipper I won't advice him to load much money. Someone on Twitter was scammed of 200k on chipper and a lot of people have also complained of being scammed. Only put what you can afford to lose.

tensazangetsu20:

Barter has stopped working. The service was cancelled indefinitely months back. If he wants to try chipper I won't advice him to load much money. Someone on Twitter was scammed of 200k on chipper and a lot of people have also complained of being scammed. Only put what you can afford to lose.

A lot of people have malicious apps running on their phones and would come online to claim they were scammed when shit hits the ceiling.

How did the scammer gain access to their accounts? Was it through Chipper Cash’s backend or from the user actually authorizing such transactions?

The only drawback i have with Chipper is that if you try to transfer Naira out of your account to another account, it might take more than 48 hours. The reason, i dont know.

Also, they laid off 12% of their staff in December and that is a bit worrying to me.

truthCoder:


You are a tech guy.

You don’t let stumbling blocks limit you.

Yes, Naira cards are no longer working but tech guys like you have solutions already for this mess. There are virtual dollar cards.

And when you say your client doesn’t want to buy at black market rate, pardon me but that is superfluous.

Were you quoting at 400 NGN to USD? Everyone pays at the black market rate. If he cannot buy at 740, tell him to pay you in USD or he is not ready to buy

For my Nigerian transactions, i charge in USD and collect via my USDT wallet or you transfer to my international account.

Your costs are in USD so why charge Naira?

I took some jobs when parallel was 525. It got to 900 before falling to present 740. How do you expect me to manage the monthly payments with such fluctuations?

No matter what the CBN does locally in Nigeria, you must find a way to survive because your target should be global.

Top notch.

We complain too much in Nigeria. This is another opportunity to make more money.

LikeAking:


Top notch.

We complain too much in Nigeria. This is another opportunity to make more money.

His complains are valid and not too much.
Don't think selfishly.

truthCoder:


You are a tech guy.

You don’t let stumbling blocks limit you.

Yes, Naira cards are no longer working but tech guys like you have solutions already for this mess. There are virtual dollar cards.

And when you say your client doesn’t want to buy at black market rate, pardon me but that is superfluous.

Were you quoting at 400 NGN to USD? Everyone pays at the black market rate. If he cannot buy at 740, tell him to pay you in USD or he is not ready to buy

For my Nigerian transactions, i charge in USD and collect via my USDT wallet or you transfer to my international account.

Your costs are in USD so why charge Naira?

I took some jobs when parallel was 525. It got to 900 before falling to present 740. How do you expect me to manage the monthly payments with such fluctuations?

No matter what the CBN does locally in Nigeria, you must find a way to survive because your target should be global.

Your points are valid. But, you should also know that clients varies according to their willingness to do business. The man worried about the stress of black market rate and careful for the fee not not affect his profit. He doesn't know the power of Salesforce in business drive, even though, I gave him list of companies using it.

truthCoder:

The only drawback i have with Chipper is that if you try to transfer Naira out of your account to another account, it might take more than 48 hours. The reason, i dont know.

~48hrs is Weird, happens in less than 2mins each time I tried.
plus the USD card works anytime and everytime. it's even currently linked to my USA paypal account
smooth sailing.

QuoteJustOnce:


~48hrs is Weird, happens in less than 2mins each time I tried.
plus the USD card works anytime and everytime. it's even currently linked to my USA paypal account
smooth sailing.

USD card works flawlessly for older cards. I have someone who recently signed in and Google Domains bounced the card, and i have a couple of Google domains pulling payments from mine.

Naira Transfers to third parties is a hit or miss.

It would tell you the transaction is pending and would give a later date of up to 48 hours.

It is only transfers to your own bank account that happens in minutes.

One other solution is to get an international account and get a card on it.

For example, It is easy to open an account in an ECOWAS country and you simply fund it via p2p with a trusted agent.

I wont be sharing explicit details here so the bandwagon does not crash it, as usual. Those who can read and understand would have gotten it.

truthCoder:


Naira Transfers to third parties is a hit or miss.

It would tell you the transaction is pending and would give a later date of up to 48 hours.

It is only transfers to your own bank account that happens in minutes.

I wouldn't know in your own case but in my case, all transfer happens in mins. I have never transferred to my own account, i have no use case for that. I only do external transfers and have transferred to almost every bank account supported and it's always less than 2mins. Maybe because I was an early adopter, I wouldn't know. No ideas. But what you're saying is strange in my situation.
p.s. yu should prolly contact the "slow" helpdesk and see if something is wrong back there.

truthCoder:
One other solution is to get an international account and get a card on it.

For example, It is easy to open an account in an ECOWAS country and you simply fund it via p2p with a trusted agent.

I wont be sharing explicit details here so the bandwagon does not crash it, as usual. Those who can read and understand would have gotten it.

That's even going too far. A simple dorm account with VISA cards work all the time.
Or for the creme de la creme, a bank account in the United States, at a cost of $500.
caveat: comes with too many paperworks, and then remember Uncle Sam vs Wesley Snipes.

LikeAking:


Top notch.

We complain too much in Nigeria. This is another opportunity to make more money.

You don't know what you're talking about. Have you tried making external payments lately?

QuoteJustOnce:


That's even going too far. A simple dorm account with VISA cards work all the time.
Or for the creme de la creme, a bank account in the United States, at a cost of $500.
caveat: comes with too many paperworks, and then remember Uncle Sam vs Wesley Snipes.

This is not true. Dorm cards don't work for everything. I couldn't even help someone pay their school application form fee with a dorm card.

tensazangetsu20:


This is not true. Dorm cards don't work for everything. I couldn't even help someone pay their school application form fee with a dorm card.

Havr you guys tried payoneer?

Comes with a prepaid card that can be used on atms(converting into local currency automatically) and can also with U.S bank accounts, though it needs more paper works.

Raheeqilmaktoom:


Havr you guys tried payoneer?

Comes with a prepaid card that can be used on atms(converting into local currency automatically) and can also with U.S bank accounts, though it needs more paper works.

Funding the card is the issue. Funding and even getting one.

Also the Payoneer card is very restrictive. Look at the terms and conditions

tensazangetsu20:


This is not true. Dorm cards don't work for everything. I couldn't even help someone pay their school application form fee with a dorm card.

As long as you're sourcing your own dollar, then technically there are no restrictions on where to spend it.
Technically for the exception blacklisted websites, spam houses, fr@udulent and money-laundering sites or gambling sites. or sites run in countries under embargoes.
So they do sir; all the time. For issues like this, contact your bank.
The problem is not the card or mechanism.
I have had times when my local Naira card even stopped working and I could have reached the same conclusion as you have now.
Check the importation thread, even people with different cards from the same bank have different results.
But if it worked for A; should work for B, unless B has issues with his account that needs rectifying. Happens a lot in banking.