Starting today, ZapRemit’s API supports instant bank transfers to Nigeria. A Lightning Network bitcoin payment sent through our platform is now converted to Nigerian Naira and disbursed directly to a recipient’s local bank account — instantly, and at a fraction of the cost of legacy remittance rails.
How It Works
The flow is the same one that powers every ZapRemit corridor: a partner platform sends a single API request, we receive the payment over Lightning, convert it to local currency at a transparent FX rate, and push it out over the destination country’s local payout rail. For Nigeria, that means settlement over NIP, the country’s real-time interbank transfer network — funds land in the recipient’s bank account in seconds, not days.
No pre-funded Naira account. No local banking relationship to negotiate. No multi-week integration with a Nigerian payment processor. Partners that are already integrated with ZapRemit get Nigeria bank payouts through the exact same POST /v1/payouts call they use everywhere else.
Why Nigeria
Nigeria is the largest remittance destination in Sub-Saharan Africa, with diaspora inflows exceeding $20 billion a year — and it’s also one of the most expensive corridors in the world to send money into, with average costs well above the global norm. That combination of enormous volume and poor service is exactly the gap Lightning-settled remittances are built to close. Nigeria has been one of our most requested corridors since we opened our roadmap, and it’s now live.
Powering Strike’s Send Globally — and Beyond
ZapRemit is the Send Globally payout provider for Strike, one of the most widely used Bitcoin payment applications in the world. Nigeria bank transfers are immediately available to Strike users sending through Send Globally, alongside our existing corridors. But Strike is only one partner. We’re actively expanding to serve wallets, neobanks, and fintech platforms well beyond Strike — any institution that wants to offer its users real cross-border payouts without owning the local payment infrastructure themselves.
Our Mission
We believe global money transfers should be a core feature of every financial institution, not a bolted-on afterthought routed through a handful of legacy intermediaries. Every bank, wallet, and fintech app should be able to let its users send money anywhere in the world as easily as they send it across the street. We’re working aggressively to set a new standard for the user experience and cost of cross-border payments — starting with corridors like Nigeria, where the gap between what exists and what’s possible is largest.
What’s Next
Nigeria joins our growing list of live payout corridors, with more markets shipping in the coming months. If you’re building a wallet, neobank, or fintech platform that needs real cross-border payout infrastructure, reach us at [email protected] or explore the API at docs.zapremit.com.