Electronic Commerce
With poor telecommunications equipment, frequent power
outages, limited Internet access, and an extremely high fraud rate, Nigeria’s
present environment will not effectively support robust e-commerce. The
government encourages e-commerce but until the country’s telecommunication’s
infrastructure is rebuilt and basic power needs are met, e-commerce will
continue to be limited. Nigeria does not have
sophisticated e-economy but recent changes should spurt e-commerce growth.
Until recently, Nigeria
there were only a few dial-up providers and a few ISPs operating on slow links.
Today, ISPs provide online advertising opportunities, Internet banking
security, and VSAT (very-small-aperture terminal) services.
E-commerce in
Nigeria is still too new to report any real statistics but there are a few
portals that foster e-commerce. Nijacol, pronounced 'Naija-call', professes to
be Nigeria's
first online community and web portal hosted by Nigerians living in Nigeria.
They offer an on-line payment system, Nijacal Wallet that allows Nigerians to
buy goods and services on-line from participating websites using the local
currency. Although the system is
available, there are still only a limited number of participating websites and
a very few users. Another portal offering e-commerce is Nigeria.com. With
offices in Nigeria, the UK, and the US, this site works in conjunction with
SHOP@AOL.
There are
electronic payment systems in Nigeria. The most common is the prepaid and re-loadable
cards. The cards are commonly used for mobile phone charges and now Internet
access through a local provider. The SmartCard is just starting to take off in
Nigeria and MasterCard has entered this market as well. The new entrants should
further e-commerce efforts.
