Virtual Debit Cards Comparison in Nigeria: Chipper Cash vs Eversend vs ALAT vs Barter vs Payday

• Zenblogr
• 1
• on May 27, 2023

In the ever-evolving digital financial landscape, virtual dollar debit cards have emerged as one of the convenient ways to make online payment on foreign websites in Nigeria. Especially when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has stop the use of Naira debit cards to make purchases in dollars.

Since then, there are many Fintech companies that have came up with offering of virtual debit cards to make online payment anywhere VISA or MasterCard cards are accepted. Although, these Fintech companies give users the ability to create and use virtual dollar cards for online purchases, they also offers different benefits and creation process of cards.

To be able to offer virtual card service in Nigeria, there are some certain things to put into consideration. All these Fintech companies partner with local banks to be able to create virtual cards. In most cases, they partnered with US-based banks to offers a dollar-powered virtual card.

From Barter by Flutterwave to Eversend, Payday, ALAT, and Chipper Cash, we have extensively covered the comparison of these virtual debit cards by exploring their features, benefits, service charges, and limitations. With these information, you can make an informed decision when choosing the best virtual debit card for your needs.

Now, let’s dive into the primary reason of this article starting with cost of card creation.

Cost of Card Creation

Fintechs offers different fees for their card creations. Card types (such as MasterCard, Visa or VISA) and card denomination (such as dollar or naira) are among the major factors that affect virtual cards cost of creation. For examples, Eversend, Payday, ALAT, Barter and Chipper Cash all offer dollar virtual cards in Mastercard and VISA cards.

More so, Chipper Cash, Payday, and ALAT offer virtual cards in the local currency like NGN. Payday has a Verve virtual card that is completely free to create but it is denominated in Naira (i.e, Naira-based virtual debit card).

Here is the cost of creation of virtual cards in Nigeria. Chipper cash is the cheapest at $0. Meanwhile, ALAT charges $1, Barter $2, Payday 6$ and Eversend 7$.

User Interface and Experience

When it comes to virtual cards, many Fintech companies offers maximum user-interface and experience to their users, simply because the virtual debit card is a competitive market. No Fintech would love to loose a customer.

Furthermore, Nigeria Fintech companies experience the same advantages and disadvantages from their third-party partners when it comes to virtual cards. Although a virtual debit cards are more reliable than traditional ATM cards. But sometimes, when it issues surface, it affect all users regardless of the Fintechs that offers it.

For example, last year Union54 which is a ‘Mastercard Principle‘ member was battling a chargeback fraud that led to almost all African virtual cards being off for months.

Notwithstanding, there should be the best among these virtual cards? Yes, there is. When it comes to UI, Eversend virtual debit cards is the best, But when it comes to UX, I really love using Chipper Cash virtual debit cards because it’s seamless, no transaction fail and it offers chargeback.

Card Charges, Rates and Limits

Virtual cards might comes with various benefits and at the same time, we must take note of it service charges, rates and limitations. Especially dollar dominated cards, most Fintech apps in Nigeria offer two options. They either charge a flat transaction fee or make money from the real-time exchange when you make payments.

Example of the Fintech company that make money from real-time exchange is Chipper Cash. The Fintech don’t charge you when you pay with your virtual dollar card, but they apply real-time exchange rates for NGN to USD transactions. At the time this article was published, the dollar rate of Chipper cash virtual debit card is NGN800/$.

Furthermore, the Chipper Cash style is good for users with small transactions. I use it to buy domain from Namecheap and uses it for some other online purchases. But, it becomes high-rate for transactions over $100.

Payday, Eversend and ALAT on the other hand requires you to have a minimum running balance of $1 per month. But, they don’t require service fees or exchange rate fees when making payments. However, Payday verve virtual card is denominated in Naira – when used for transaction in other currencies, you may experience exchange rate fluctuations.

Furthermore, Eversend charges a fee of $0.5 its virtual card is used to make payment. Even if the card is declined for lack of funds, you’ll still got charged. But the interesting part about Eversend is the transparency of their fees, you sign up knowing what you getting into.

In conclusion about virtual cards cost, rate, and limitations, Chipper Cash, Payday, ALAT, Eversend and Barter set their daily transaction limit to $5000 and accumulated card balance is unlimited. To increase transaction limits, you may be required to upload some documents including proof of wealth.