PayPal coming to Nigeria

PayPal is entering 10 new countries this week, including Nigeria, providing online payment alternatives for consumers via mobile phones or PCs in markets often blighted by financial fraud.

Rupert Keeley, the executive in charge of the EMEA region of PayPal, the payments unit of eBay Inc, said in an interview on Monday the expansion would bring the number of countries it serves to 203.

Starting on Tuesday, consumers in Nigeria, which has 60 million users and has Africa's largest population, along with nine other markets in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America will be able to make payments through PayPal.


"PayPal has been going through a period of reinvention, refreshing many of its services to make them easier to use on mobile (phones), allowing us to expand into fast-developing markets," Keeley said.

Once the services go live, customers in the 10 countries with access to the Web and a bank card authorized for Internet transactions will be able to register for a PayPal account and make payments to millions of sites worldwide.

Initially, PayPal is only offering "send money" services for consumers to pay for goods and services at PayPal-enabled merchant sites while safeguarding their financial details. This is free to consumers and covered by fees it charges merchants.

"We think we can give our sellers selling into this market a great deal of reassurance," said Keeley, a former regional banking executive with Standard Chartered Plc and senior executive with payment card company Visa Inc.

PayPal does not yet cover peer-to-peer transactions, which allow consumers to send money to other consumers. It has not yet enabled local merchants in the new markets to receive payments, nor is it offering other forms of banking services, he said.

A 2013 survey of 200 UK ecommerce sites by Visa's CyberSource unit estimated that 1.26 percent of online orders are fraudulent and that 85 percent of merchants expected fraud to increase or remain static last year.

CyberSource also estimated that suspicion of fraudulent transactions result in 8.2 percent of online orders in Latin America being rejected by merchants, compared with 5.5 percent in Europe and 2.7 percent in the United States and Canada.

Such fraud can include ID theft, social engineering, phishing and automated harvesting of customer financial data via botnets, or networks of computers controlled by hackers.

A total of 80 million Internet users stand to gain access to PayPal global services this week, including those in five European markets - Belarus, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco and Montenegro, four in the African nations of Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Zimbabwe, as well as Paraguay. Internet usage figures are based on research by Euromonitor International.

PayPal counts 148 million active accounts worldwide.

Last week, MasterCard Inc, the world's second-largest debit and credit card company, and a PayPal rival in payment processing, said it was working with the Nigerian government on a pilot to overlay payment technology on a new national identity card.

PayPal has operated in 190 markets since 2007 and added three countries - Egypt, Georgia and Serbia last year. Roughly a quarter of the $52 billion in payment volumes PayPal reported in the first quarter of 2014 were for cross-border transactions. PayPal reported $1.8 billion in revenue during the period.

Reuters

Related stories: Western Union launches online service in Nigeria

Bitcoin interest grows in Nigeria

Nigeria draw with Iran 0-0 in FIFA World Cup 2014

Nigeria and Iran delivered the first draw of the World Cup on Monday as they ground out a scrappy 0-0 stalemate in their opening match in Group F.

The draw at the Arena da Baixada in the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba followed 12 mostly high scoring and attacking games.

After a first half in which Nigeria failed to capitalize on its dominance, chances were few and far between in the second.

In the early passages of play, Nigeria had shown menace, with much of its attacking thrust coming down the left with Emmanuel Emenike and Victor Moses combining to cause problems for the defensively-minded Iran side.

Nigeria came closest to scoring in the seventh minute when an Ahmed Musa goal was disallowed after John Obi Mikel was adjudged to have fouled Iran goalkeeper Alireza Haghighi at a corner.

Iran grew more confident as the game progressed and came close to scoring in the 34th when a Reza Ghoochannejhad header required a sharp save from Nigeria goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama.


In the second half, both sides were guilty of sloppy passages of play, to the growing annoyance of the mainly Brazilian crowd. Players from both sides snatched at chances, and neither goalkeeper was troubled despite some frantic late pressure in the final minutes.

''They had 11 people behind the ball, which made it hard for us to create chances,'' Mikel said. ''It's frustrating because they sat back.''

Nigeria coach Stephen Keshi said his team became anxious when it failed to score during a dominant opening 25 minutes.

But he added: ''Respect to Iran, they had their game plan to sit back and defend and they did well.''

Keshi, who played for Nigeria at the 1994 World Cup, is already anticipating a backlash after the draw.

''Win or lose I'm criticized,'' said Keshi, whose side won last year's Africa Cup of Nations. ''A draw now, I'll be criticized. It's part of the game. In my country, it's win at all costs and sometimes it doesn't go that way.''

The best chance either side has to progress in the tournament is to beat debutant Bosnia-Herzegovina, as Argentina is the firm favorite to top the group. Lionel Messi scored one of the tournament's best goals in Argentina's 2-1 victory over the Bosnians on Sunday.

Iran coach Carlos Queiroz said the result was ''fair'' and that his players deserved ''sympathy and respect'' for performing on the biggest stage despite the impact of economic sanctions on the country - which made it difficult to arrange friendlies.

''We're not here to perform the role of the happy loser,'' Queiroz said. ''The fans need to know the conditions we have endured for three years to get here.''

Queiroz wouldn't talk about the team's next game against Argentina.

''Now I'm so tired just let me enjoy this point we collected from Nigeria,'' he said.

The draw means the winless World Cup runs of both teams continues, dating back to France 1998. For Iran, though, this was the first time it had not conceded a goal at the World Cup finals.



AP


Related story: Nigeria Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi says Africa can with the World Cup

Video - Insight on Nigeria's TV show clone of Biggest Loser called Fastest Shedder

A recent report on obesity had said 62 percent of overweight people in the world are found in developing countries. Even though Nigeria did feature among African countries with high cases of obesity, the country has its own fair share of people struggling with being overweight.

Nigeria Super Eagles coach Stephen Keshi says Africa can with the World Cup

African sides are as good as any at the World Cup and one could end up winning it in Brazil, Nigerian coach Stephen Keshi said on Sunday ahead of his side's opening group game against outsiders Iran.

And if Nigeria were to get that far, against the current odds, expect at least one reporter to be running for cover.

"I will love it. I will kiss you all over," the former Nigeria captain turned 'Big Boss' assured a news conference at the Baixada arena, where his players kick off their campaign on Monday.

African champions Nigeria are one of five representatives from the continent competing in Brazil - the others are Algeria, Cameroon, Ghana and Ivory Coast - and face a tough task to get through a Group F that also includes Argentina and Bosnia.

However Keshi said their chances should not be under-estimated.
Asked how close he felt Africa was to winning the Cup for the first time, he did not hesitate: "Very close.

"Because they (the African sides) are good. As good as any other teams that are here. I think this tournament is an open tournament. We just have to do what we have to do," he continued.

Ghana's Black Stars were a penalty shootout away from becoming the first African side to reach the semi-finals at the last World Cup in South Africa in 2010 while Nigeria have twice previously reached the second round.

Cameroon made it to the quarter-finals in 1990 and Senegal in 2002.

"This team is growing, it's like a baby," Keshi said of his current crop of players, when asked to compare them with his class of World Cup debutants 20 years ago. "This team is just a year and a half-old. The team of 1994 was almost five or six years old.

"In 1994, the spirit was very high, we didn't care where the (opposing) team was coming from, we knew we are going to go out there and win the game. Here, we're building that, we try to bring the same spirit.

"Once we get the spirit, trust me, it's going to be two times as strong as 1994."

One of two African coaches at the finals, the other being Ghana's Kwasi Appiah, Keshi said it was time the continent nurtured home-grown managerial talent.

"We haven't been given enough chances or opportunity or time to show what we can do," said the coach, who qualified Togo for the 2006 finals only to be ousted before the tournament.

"The biggest problem is that once you do the dirty job of getting the team qualified as an African coach, when you come to the big stage that's when they think that you're not experienced and they need a European coach to come in."

When Nigeria competed at the 1994 tournament in the United States, the coach was Dutchman Clemens Westerhof. In 1998, it was the turn of Serbian Bora Milutinovic after Frenchman Philippe Troussier had secured qualification.

"I think this is wrong," said Keshi. "A lot of African seasoned coaches that are there and can make Africans proud are not being given opportunities to do so."

Reuters

Related stories: Video - FIFA World Cup 2014 Team Profle: Nigeria Super Eagles

Video - Nigeria Super Eagles putting faith in young squad for 2014 World Cup

Increasing possiblilty that kidnapped schoolgirls may never be rescued

It's now been two months since terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 Nigerian school girls in the country's unstable north.

Despite new aerial patrols from U.S. drones, no progress has been made in locating them. This past week, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo said some of the girls may never return home. And ordinary Nigerians are accusing the Nigerian government of trying to stifle their pleas to keep the situation top of mind.

In an op-ed on Project Syndicate, former British PM Gordon Brown goes a step further, discussing the gruesome reason for why the campaign may have already been lost:

...it is likely that in the month since Boko Haram released a video of the girls flanked by gunmen, the girls have been split into groups of 40-50. If one group is rescued by force, the others will be murdered, creating a serious tactical dilemma for the Nigerian government’s special forces.

And, as the world’s attention shifts to other global trouble spots, such as Iraq, intense international scrutiny is giving way to what seems like silent acceptance of the girls’ fate. The fight to maintain global support has become an uphill one for Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, despite his direct appeal to the whole world for help in securing the girls’ release.

A Times of India report says the Nigerian government has now turned to the Sri Lankan government for advice in counteracting the movement, given the latter's experience defeating the Tamil Tigers. That campaign resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties. So it seems like whatever , the price for doing so may be extreme.



Written Rob Wile

Business Insider

Related stories: Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo says some of the 200 abducted schoolgirls may never be found

Boko Haram disguised as military execute christians in church