After my last review, I have got so many feedback and compliments that I think more people would want to know my thought on how the payment gateways are doing in 2015. I am sure that most payment platforms must have learnt a lot from their shortcomings, owing to my previous list.

Now, new payment platforms have joined my list while some that I had on my list have fallen off the bar. New stuff are happening in the industry as some of the ineffective gateways are leaving the game while game changers are emmerging. Several things we had always wanted to happen in the industry long ago are now happening.

I have decided to address some frequently asked questions in this review so as to ensure that you have a better knowledge of some basic concepts before you could consider dialing my number. I would base my assessment on these; integration work flow, vulnerability, documentation, support and setup convenience. They would be listed in an increasing order of significance. Also, for clarity and convenience, I would put my review in tabular form and increasing order of significance.

Are you good to go with me?

5. Cash Envoy
They remain on the fifth position despite some new interesting stuffs they have added to their platform. They now have a new design and some things that would interest you. Cash Envoy has grown to be one option of a plaform of choice for me. They are using technology the right way. I give kudos to the guys working there. However, they still have so much to do, I guess their CEO knows that too. This platform is still growing and you can see that they are giving everything for the fight in the battle for supremacy. I have got a few emails from them about new things happening to their platform and I am happy they are taking giant strides to bridge the gap for their merchants.

4. Zenith Bank GlobalPay

I have been a great admirer of GlobalPay even before I created a Prestashop Cart plugin for the payment gateway. It is interesting to see a platform as solid as this from Zenith Bank. I sold some of the plugins on Prestashop store and I was glad to discover that the buyer never came back for support. Thumbs up for good documentation and sample code. With the splendid experience that I witnessed when helping my cousin pay his school fee on Yaba College of Technology website, you won't be surprised if this payment gateway takes the lead in my next review.
However, GlobalPay website is high and dry. It looks like a design done in 1998, when developers were mindful of colours and functionality that are beyond what people see.

3. UBA Payment Gateway
With so much applaud that I gave this payment gateway last year, but “they eventually allowed the praises from their loyal customers get into thier head”. It was interesting when I told UBA eCommerce team during a chat with them that I rated them my number one. A dude felt I contacted the team to make them feel happy but it is the gospel truth; you guys did well last year but you are already dropping the ball. I received quite a number of displeasing comments based on your support from some people that signed up with you through my post and I experienced some other short comings myself. All I had as a defence was that I had already written that your support is terrible. In your team, you have people who do not know so much about the application support development. Anyway, since your platform still rocks, I considered retaining you on my list, but now in third position. You won't blame me. I have some other platforms that standout.

2. QuickTeller
This is a great payment gateway by Interswitch. I could have been on their list of merchants last year when they sent out promo email to merchants who are willing to join. One of the interesting things about the platform is that, when you are signed up on it, you are automatically featured on their quickteller website. Your customers can pay for your service from ATM and you still have the privilege to have customers pay via your website. You are quickly attracted to this platform when you know the number of channels presented to your customers for payment. I once worked on an application, when it got to the point of payment, the client called several platforms to know the one that would suit him. I was surprised he eventually settled down with QuickTeller. I have always wondered why until now that I have to wonder no more. QuickTeller is a well crafted product and it has remained No. 1 bill payment service in Nigeria.

1. GTPay

Here is my number one platform for the year 2015. Great job from a great bank. Though I have few reservations, the platform looks perfect for the job when compared with others. GTBank has shown so much commitment to electronic payment in Nigeria and as for me, they are taking the lead...I am entitled to my opinion anyway. Their platform is not built from the scratch though, it is more like an icing on WebPay. It is funny I never saw this coming (i.e. that I would have them in my first position). I never featured them on my last year review. However, a lot has changed about the gateway. They changed their documentation and added great stuffs. I just have two questions for them; must customers come to the GTPay page that is not functional? All it does is ask customers to choose a card type (the option it won't carry over to WebPay) and specify email address (why not specify this in the parameter sent to you?). Anyway, let's go to our assessment parameters

Additional Information

I recently heard of KongaPay and decided to critically examine the whole rave about it. I must genuinely say, it is the next big bang in the Nigeria payment industry. Well crafted application. They did justice to payment directly from your bank account. It is so easy and fun to pay for stuffs. Refunding of cancelled orders are done immediately and directly into bank account too. Chai, it has never been this sweet getting money from me. I will use this option on Konga over and over. I have not included it on my list because it is not open to the public yet - I guess. I am yet to see another platform implementing it. I don't want to keep you salivating. This payment approach is cool, it is just glued to your bank account...hehehe. I will elaborate on this innovation in another post. This post is already getting too long than I had expected. I need some sleep.

Hummm thinking of it, I have always refrained myself from not writing what my ideal payment platform would look like. I have this funny feeling that these innovation hungry gateways would hijack my idea and never acknowledge the source. Need to do some others things. See you next year. I will try to make my review come earlier than this. I am out.

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Disclaimer: I wrote this based on my personal experience with these payment gateways and some information I could get online. I have not done this to ridicule or advertise any platform. I have also based my assumption on the materials and information available to me as at the time of writing this piece.

Movement!