Nigerians with the right bank card and an Android phone can now pay with Google Pay. Google's wallet directory lists cards from 4 banks: FirstBank, GTBank, UBA and Zenith Bank. UBA announced its commercial rollout on Tuesday, and GTCO said the same day that GTBank debit cards work too.
The coverage isn't even. UBA leads with 4 eligible card types, Mastercard credit, debit and prepaid plus a Visa prepaid card. Zenith has 3, all Mastercard. GTBank has 2, Mastercard debit and prepaid. FirstBank has 1, its Mastercard debit card. That's 10 card types in all, and only 1 of them is a Visa (STATART count).
Online first, then the till
Online is where it will work soonest. A card saved in Google Wallet means no typing the card number, expiry date and CVV at checkout, and the merchant gets a token instead of the real card details. GTCO has switched Google Pay on by default for every business using its Squad payment gateway, run by its HabariPay arm. Paystack has offered Google Pay at web checkout for Nigerian merchants since September.
"Most failed online payments are not refused, they are abandoned," said GTCO group chief executive Segun Agbaje.
Shops are harder. Tapping a phone needs an NFC-enabled Android handset and a terminal with an active contactless reader and up-to-date software. Thousands of POS machines in Nigerian retail hubs still run older chip-and-PIN software, so a card in Google Wallet won't always go through at the counter.
Who gains
For online sellers in Lagos and Abuja, a 1-tap checkout is a direct shot at abandoned carts. For the 4 banks, it puts their cards inside Google Wallet on Android phones.
Expect Google Pay to show up first in online checkouts, while shop counters lag until the POS fleet is upgraded. The next sign of real progress is more Visa cards and more banks joining the list.
Figures are as reported at the time of writing. STATART news is written by Frank Brother (Markets), Christina Amgbari (Insights) and Ebipadei Joseph (Lifestyle), and checked before publication.