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Stripe, the global financial infrastructure provider, has unveiled a new feature that enables its U.S.-based merchants to accept payments in Nigeria’s local currency, the naira. This initiative is part of Stripe’s broader strategy to enhance international commerce and simplify cross-border transactions for its clients.
With this new offering, Nigerian consumers can now make purchases in their local currency, while merchants like Amazon, based in the United States, will receive payments in their preferred currency, such as the U.S. dollar. Previously, businesses looking to accept payments from international customers were required to establish a legal entity in each respective country. This requirement often restricted their global reach and contributed to high rates of cart abandonment during checkout.
Stripe’s latest feature removes this barrier, allowing merchants to engage directly with Nigerian customers without needing to establish a local presence. Initially, this option is being rolled out exclusively to U.S. retailers, with settlements processed in USD as part of the beta phase.
“Online payments are, among other things, a conversion optimization problem,” Stripe emphasized in its 2023 annual letter. The company has long understood that offering local currency payment options is critical to reducing cart abandonment and boosting revenue. Research from the Baymard Institute, which has monitored global cart abandonment trends for over a decade, shows that 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned at checkout, often due to mismatches between the merchant’s pricing and the shopper’s local currency.
By enabling merchants to display prices in naira, Stripe aims to enhance conversion rates, helping businesses capture more sales and expand their global footprint. This new feature is in line with Stripe’s mission to “grow the GDP of the internet,” a vision the company continues to pursue, with a total payment volume of $1 trillion over the past year—equivalent to 1% of global GDP.
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