Online Payment in Nigeria: How Secure is it
This post seeks to explain the risk involved in making payments online in Nigeria. It also seeks to proffer advice for safety measures in the transaction of business online with the use of ATM cards in Nigeria.
One thing that Nigerians love asking and searching the internet for is “How safe is it to make online payment in Nigeria?”. The banking sector in Nigeria has joined the league of developed countries in the western world to key into the new standard of banking and online marketing with virtually all banks in Nigeria making it possible to easily transact online for their clients through the ATM cards.
Thanks to this Automated Teller Machine Card (MasterCard, verve or visa card), buying goods, airtime and paying for services online has now become easier.
One of the great importance of these online service is that, using the World Wide Web, it connects Nigeria to the world and makes it extremely easy for Nigerians to transact their businesses both locally and internationally and make online payments securely without the buyer and the seller seeing each other.
How safe/secure is online payment in Nigeria
In today’s world even if a system is confirm to be safe, Scammers and online fraudsters are always devising new ways of carrying out their nefarious activities and develop a new way of hacking into people’s account details.
Although, the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced the use of Bank Verification Number (BVN) to checkmate the activities of these fraudsters, some of the possible ways via which these fraudsters can rob you online shall be exposed below.
Through ATM card theft
In online transaction no platform will asks for your secret code when making payment but will only ask for the last set of numbers on your ATM card. Scammers are on the lookout of getting your ATM cards which will grant them easy access in making any transaction using your details.
Though Phone theft
As banks do not ask for secret pin before airtime can be purchase from your bank account, it opens door for fraudsters to steal your phone and transfer all the money in your bank account to your phone as airtime and transfer same to his/her bank account, most especially if you are the type that links your phone number with your bank account.
Through Phishing emails
This is a special kind of mail in which the source is never reliable. In most cases you will be asked to click on a link and provide certain information and if that is done it will only reveal every personal detail you might have stored in your mailbox, including your email password, credit/debit card details and financial transaction information.
Advice on Making Payment online in Nigeria Securely
One thing is certain as long as Nigerian banks upgrade their system to securely make payments online, hackers at the other end are also changing tactics on how to bypass these security measures. One strong advice I would like to leave you with is this: Any site that insists on getting your financial details especially your BVN, should be avoided if you find such site unreliable and never shop on a site if you are not sure of how secured that site is.
