PayPal announced a Nigeria partnership but is still blacklisting Nigerians

On January 27, 2026, PayPal announced it was finally going live in Nigeria through a partnership with Paga. There was a promise that Nigerian users could now link their accounts, receive international payments, and withdraw funds in Naira.

After 20 years of restrictions and broken promises, it looked like PayPal was finally serious about serving the Nigerian market. But the same problems have not disappeared.

Within hours of the announcement, Nigerian users began reporting the exact issues that have plagued its Africa operations since 2004. Accounts were getting locked. Verification systems were failing. Funds were being held. The pattern that drove millions of Africans away from it over the past two decades was repeating itself in real time.

X user @ajibola__aa logged in to his account with a one-dollar test payment. The account was immediately hit with a temporary restriction.

Another user, @_tsmusty, described a more direct experience. “I just gave PayPal a chance again,” he wrote. “I submitted the requested documents, and they banned me for life immediately.“

These are not isolated incidents. They represent a systematic problem that the company has never actually fixed. The company has a documented 20-year history of locking Nigerian accounts, holding funds indefinitely, and providing verification systems that either don’t work or result in permanent bans. The January 2026 partnership announcement didn’t change any of that.

I experienced this myself. After the partnership was announced, I tried to verify documents in my PayPal account to access my funds. The system kept giving error messages. No explanation, no alternative process, just a broken verification system that prevented me from accessing money…

This is the same complaint Nigerian users have been making since 2004.

Why does PayPal keep doing this?

According to Cardtonic, a Nigerian fintech platform that published a comprehensive guide on using PayPal in 2025, the limitations are baked into how it operates in Nigeria.

Nigerian personal accounts can only send money, not receive it. There is no direct withdrawal to Nigerian banks. The verification process requires workarounds like virtual dollar cards. Even when everything is set up correctly, users face currency conversion fees of up to 4 per cent and international transaction fees of up to 5 per cent.

These restrictions existed before the Paga partnership was announced. They continue to exist after it. What changed was the marketing, not the underlying systems that discriminate against Nigerian users.

The pattern goes back decades.

• In 2004, PayPal restricted Nigerian users from receiving funds entirely, citing concerns about fraud.
• In 2014, a partnership with First Bank of Nigeria was announced, but it was sent only and heavily restricted.
• In 2021, Flutterwave integration helped businesses but did nothing for individual users.

Each time, PayPal generated positive press coverage. Each time, Nigerian users ended up locked out.

The Foundation for Investigative Journalism reported in 2022 that PayPal users across Africa were calling the platform racist after repeated account freezes and fund seizures.

One Kenyan user, Sheila Amolo, told the publication that her account was frozen the very first time she tried to receive money. Multiple users described contacting the comoany’s support and receiving only FAQ-type responses with no actual help.

IMG: @Ajibola_ _aa

The financial damage is real and documented.

X user @iamOgunyinka wrote about losing thousands of dollars between 2019 and 2021 because of PayPal’s restrictions. In another desperate attempt to get a project from a client who insisted on using PayPal alone, he wrote, “I remember getting scammed by this Kenyan guy I asked to help me receive the money. Till today, I still haven’t recovered my money.”

Another user, @iam__temmyyy, described a smaller but equally frustrating loss. “They will learn the hard way,” the user wrote. “Dem chop my $100 till today. Money wey OF model pay me for promotion. My sweat and hard labour.”

IMG: iamOgunyinka

These stories repeat across thousands of Nigerian users. Freelancers who lost international clients because they couldn’t receive payments. Small business owners who had funds frozen at critical moments.

Creative professionals who gave up on global platforms entirely because PayPal made it impossible to get paid.

The scepticism from the Nigerian tech community is immediate and intense.

@ronaldnzimora laid it out clearly:

"The only reason PayPal is opening up to the African market is that they are losing out to the new competition," he wrote. "Their business is dying. They damaged their rep so bad their only hope of escape is to come to the same market they despise and treated badly for years. And no, their behaviour will not suddenly change. You will cry if you use them."

@EboEmakhu wrote a detailed thread explaining why itss return feels like an insult rather than an opportunity.

"For over a decade," he noted, "PayPal operated a selective exclusion model in Africa, particularly Nigeria. Nigerians and African creators, freelancers, startups, and SMEs were allowed to send money but restricted from receiving payments, flagged frozen or limited disproportionately under vague risk policies, and locked out of global commerce while servicing global clients."

He continued:

"During that blocked period, Africans did not stop building. Instead local and pan African fintechs emerged to solve the exact problems PayPal refused to for Africans. These companies didn't just fill a gap, they absorbed the market risk PayPal declined. Now after Africa has proven its transaction volume, its creator economy maturing, and its fintech infrastructure becoming globally competitive, PayPal is returning, not independently but through an African fintech rail."

The bitterness is understandable. Nigerian fintech companies like Flutterwave, Paystack, and others built functional payment systems that work for Nigerian users without mass account lockouts, without broken verification systems, and without holding funds indefinitely.

They did this while PayPal claimed it was too risky to serve the market. Now PayPal wants back in, but only by piggybacking on the infrastructure those companies built.

@Mrbankstips summarised the frustration perfectly.

"PayPal locked Nigerians out of the global digital economy for 21 years," he wrote. "No receiving payments, no withdrawals, just send only status while our freelancers and businesses struggled. Now that we've built a billion-dollar fintech ecosystem without them, they want back in. The audacity."

What makes the 2026 partnership particularly galling is that PayPal hasn’t actually fixed the problems that caused all this damage. The verification systems still don’t work. Accounts are still getting locked. The same policies that restricted Nigerian users for two decades remain in place.

PayPal just outsourced the withdrawal process to Paga while keeping all the broken infrastructure that locks users out.

IMG: @_tsmusty

The warnings from Nigerian users are direct. @SirLeoBDasilva wrote simply, “The day PayPal holds your money, don’t come here to ask us to fight for you.”

@lorddrey was equally blunt.

"Don't use PayPal as a Nigerian," he wrote. "Coming back to Nigeria after freezing and taking users' funds is an insult. PayPal is not coming to Nigeria because it is inclusive or whatever, it is a dying company trying to resurrect."

The evidence is overwhelming. PayPal has spent 20 years proving it cannot or will not serve Nigerian users fairly. The January 2026 partnership announcement did not change the behaviour.

The persistence of the company’s discriminatory policies in Nigeria (Africa) cannot be separated from the worldview of some of its most visible founders.

Elon Musk has been criticised for racially insensitive gestures and dismissive comments about diversity, while Peter Thiel has long aligned himself with exclusionary politics and ideologies that minimise the importance of inclusion.

Even if neither man is directly responsible for PayPal’s current operations, their legacies shape how the company is perceived, i.e, a platform born from leaders who often downplayed equity, now returning to Africa with the same broken systems that lock users out.

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