PayPal’s Push For African Markets It Once Shunned Reopens Old Wounds

Kenneth Nwakanma, a Nigerian tech entrepreneur doing freelance gigs for foreign clients at the time, received the email from PayPal in 2020. His account, which held USD 15 K from freelance work for high-net-worth clients abroad, was suddenly restricted.

After months of appeals, PayPal’s final decision arrived: the account was permanently closed. The funds, he was told, would be held for 180 days and then used “to solve the harm against PayPal.” When the waiting period ended, his balance was USD 45.00.

“I broke down,” Nwakanma shared. “That money was going to solve three major issues: relocating to a new apartment, paying for my mum’s medical bills, and a certification I was chasing. So if there’s anyone who understands PayPal loss, it’s me.”

Nwakanma’s story is a troubling entry in a long, bitter ledger of grievances between the global payments giant and African users. For over a decade, residents in key markets like Nigeria—Africa’s most populous nation—were largely barred from receiving money through the platform, relegated to a “send-only” status that crippled freelancers and stifled online businesses.

Now, PayPal is making a concerted, expensive push to capture the continent it once sidelined. In September 2025, the company announced a USD 100 M commitment to invest in and acquire startups in Africa and the Middle East. More strategically, PayPal World—a new global digital wallet platform enabling cross-border interoperability—is slated for an African launch in 2026, according to Otto Williams, PayPal’s Head of Middle East and Africa.

The initiative promises seamless payments, allowing users of local wallets to shop overseas via a PayPal button without needing a traditional PayPal account. It represents a significant technical and philosophical pivot. But for many African professionals, the ambitious overture feels profoundly belated, reopening old wounds of exclusion and financial loss.

“PayPal wants to quietly sneak back into Africa and Nigeria like nothing happened,” said Mayowa, a Nigerian YouTuber who lost nearly USD 1 K in ad revenue when his account was abruptly closed in 2022. “I would rather stay jobless than work and have PayPal eventually swallow the money. You can’t treat us like garbage and then walk back into our lives as if nothing happened.”

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The roots of this distrust stretch back years. In 2011, Nigerian writer Mfonobong Nsehe, then a contributor to Forbes, detailed how his PayPal account was frozen when he tried to pay for a domain name from Lagos. He had opened the account while studying in Switzerland.

“PayPal replied to me, saying that they suspected illegal activity was going on with my account since it was being accessed from Nigeria,” Nsehe wrote. Despite providing his passport and utility bills, his funds remained locked, with PayPal stating it did “not accept Nigerian residents into its network.”

This policy is widely attributed to concerns over fraud risk, an association crystallised by the infamous “Nigerian prince” email scam trope. PayPal generally refrains from commenting on specifics around this issue, often choosing to blame it on the “complexities of global expansion” while talking up efforts to extend its services to neglected parts. Besides fraud fears, speculation also points to regulatory and security risk and uncertainties over exchange controls.

The impact, however, is felt by legitimate workers. Stella Inabo, a freelance content writer, lamented in a 2020 essay how the exclusion cost her opportunities. “I stopped laughing when I realised the [Nigerian Prince] joke was on me. And any other Nigerian freelancer that wants to open a PayPal account,” she wrote.

“I had just confirmed my worst fear. Nigeria was not on the list of countries eligible to receive payments through Paypal. I could not help but reflect on the losses incurred because of my nationality. A 22-year-old freelance content writer in Brazil would not need to spend hours wondering how to get paid through PayPal or Stripe. There would be no Google search results confirming her fears that yes, she can’t receive money for her hard work.”

Notably, Rukky Kofi, one of many Nigerians that have lost opportunities because of PayPal’s strict rules, launched a change.org petition in 2014 to “Bring PayPal to Nigeria.”

“I applied to a job online that would allow me earn a full-time income by Nigerian standards (about USD 1 K a month). I qualified for this job after a rigorous screening process, but when it was time to setup my work info, I found out that the company makes payments only via PayPal..,” Kofi shared.

“The internet presents willing Nigerians with opportunity. The opportunity to earn their living legitimately online. However, PayPal, the ‘industry standard’ for online payments, makes this opportunity inaccessible to Nigerians in most cases.”

The frustration was not confined to Nigeria. In South Africa, users have long complained about unfavourable exchange rates and high fees when integrating PayPal with local banks. “It’s all South African banks that are part of the PayPal pact,” wrote commentator Freddie McClure in 2024, detailing stories of users losing significant percentages of their money to fees and conversion costs.

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PayPal’s tentative steps toward inclusion often felt incomplete. A 2014 partnership with Nigeria’s First Bank only enabled outbound payments, not inflows. The 2021 collaboration with African fintech unicorn Flutterwave was a breakthrough, allowing global PayPal users to pay merchants in select African countries. Yet it was a merchant-centric solution, not the peer-to-peer functionality individuals craved, and came with transaction fees.

During PayPal’s absence, Africa’s own fintech ecosystem erupted. Startups like Flutterwave and Paystack in Nigeria, and a host of others, built robust infrastructure for local and cross-border payments, solving the very problems PayPal’s restrictions had created.

Oo Nwoye, a Nigerian tech industry stalwart, offers a counterintuitive perspective. He believes PayPal’s historical reluctance was a catalyst for this local innovation. “I doubt Shola would have had the confidence to start Paystack then if there was PayPal,” Nwoye opined, referring to Paystack co-founder Shola Akinlade. “And without Paystack launching then, no Flutterwave would have come soon after… So THANK YOU PayPal for NOT coming to Nigeria then. And I really mean it.”

Today, PayPal is signalling a change in posture. The new investment fund is aimed at taking minority stakes and funding acquisitions. Its planned PayPal World platform seeks to partner with, rather than compete directly against, local wallet providers, leveraging networks like M-Pesa in Kenya.

“We’re looking to enable as many markets as possible on the continent through partnerships,” Otto Williams said at an industry event in December 2025. He highlighted that announced partners in India, China, and Brazil already represent a pool of two billion wallet users.

Africa has the world’s youngest population, rapidly increasing internet penetration, and a booming digital economy. A 2025 report by McKinsey & Company estimates that Africa’s fintech market revenue could grow at double the global rate. For PayPal, capturing a slice of this future is imperative.

But the road back is paved with scepticism. Social media reactions to the expansion news have been fiercely critical. “PayPal thinks they’re smart reopening Nigeria. Nigerians survived without them,” wrote one user on X. Another stated, “If Nigerians have any sense of self-worth, they should actually boycott PayPal.”

The sentiment underscores the challenge ahead. PayPal is not entering a vacuum, but a sophisticated, competitive market dominated by homegrown players who earned trust by filling the void PayPal left.

For entrepreneurs like Ayoola Daniel, an SEO expert, the scars remain. “PayPal suspended my account when I had a chance at making USD 5 K a month from e-commerce,” he shared. “They asked me to refund clients’ money, and I couldn’t fulfil over 50 orders. There was nothing else I could do at that time in 2021. Just regrets and insane hatred for PayPal.”

PayPal’s new Africa play is a story of corporate strategy reckoning with human memory, a bet that the utility of a globally connected wallet will eventually outweigh the enduring resentment of those who were locked out for years.

Its potential users, however, are remembering a past where that door was firmly shut, sometimes locking their funds inside. The success of PayPal’s long-delayed embrace of Africa will hinge on which of these two forces proves stronger.