BlackBerry Extends Mobile Payments to Nigeria, Others

Blackberry Limited, the Canadian global mobile communications leader, has announced its intentions to extend its mobile payment option to Africa, starting with Nigeria, then South Africa.

Blackberry Ltd first launched its mobile payment program in June 2014 in Canada with a 3-year deal with EnStream, a joint venture by the three largest wireless service providers in Canada, which gave it access to the credit card details of smartphone users, enabling them to inter-connect them and banks.

Later in August 2015, Blackberry introduced BBM Money to BBM users in Canada; that is mobile payment through PayPal.

Matthew Talbot, Blackberry’s senior VP for Emerging Solutions wrote in a blog, “we’re excited to announce we’ll be expanding our mobile money initiatives into Africa, commencing in Nigeria. Blackberry has partnered with Interswitch Ltd, Nigeria’s largest payment processor, to enable any Nigerian to transfer money or airtime within BBM as simply as they transfer photos or files.”

He also reported that as a separate program, Blackberry would also expand the BBM Shop payment options soon. It will include Firstmonie mobile wallet, the mobile payment initiative by First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) Ltd, the largest bank in Nigeria. They will also partner with Mobile Media Info Tech (MMIT) in the bid to make changes to and secure the payments to the BBM Shop.