Paying Nigerian bank accounts through Flutterwave
What a Nigerian business must set up before sending naira transfers through Flutterwave, the details each transfer needs, and how to confirm and record it.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Running a business businesses in Nigeria
Many Nigerian businesses use Flutterwave to collect money and then discover it can also send money out: paying suppliers, refunding customers to their bank accounts, settling agents or riders. Sending transfers from the same balance that receives collections is convenient. It is also where a wrong account number or a missing approval turns into money that is hard to get back.
This article covers what Flutterwave's documentation says a merchant must have in place before sending naira to Nigerian bank accounts, what each transfer needs, how to confirm it went through, and how to record the payment in your books.
Before the first transfer
Flutterwave's documentation lists four prerequisites for NGN transfers to Nigerian bank accounts. The merchant must:
- Complete KYC and have its account approved. An account still under review cannot send transfers.
- Whitelist its server IP addresses. Transfers sent through the API come only from servers you have registered with Flutterwave.
- Enable transfers via API on the account.
- Hold sufficient funds in its NGN wallet. A transfer cannot draw on money that is still waiting to settle.
The second and third points tell you something about who should be involved. Transfers through the API are a technical set-up, normally done by whoever built or runs your integration, and they deserve the same care as any system that can move money. The full set-up is on Flutterwave's Nigerian bank account transfer page, which covers the prerequisites, starting a transfer and checking that it went through.
What each transfer needs
Flutterwave's documentation says a transfer to a Nigerian bank account requires the beneficiary's bank code, retrieved from Flutterwave's Get Banks endpoint, the account number, the amount and the currency NGN. A narration, a unique reference and a debit currency are optional.
Treat the optional items as compulsory in practice:
- A unique reference lets you trace the transfer in Flutterwave, in your bank records and in your books. Use the bill or invoice number it settles as part of it.
- A narration tells the recipient what the money is for, which saves a phone call from a supplier asking which invoice you paid.
The bank code and account number are where mistakes cost most. Take them from the supplier's written bank details, not from a phone call or a chat message, and confirm the account name before the first payment. Name checks on Nigerian transfers are covered in NIP transfers and name enquiry.
Fees on cross-currency transfers
A business holding dollars in Flutterwave can pay a naira account from them. Flutterwave's documentation says that for cross-currency transfers to Nigerian bank accounts, the transfer amount is debited from the debit_currency wallet while the transfer fee is debited from the NGN wallet. So even a transfer funded from another currency needs some naira in the NGN wallet to pay the fee.
Confirming the transfer went through
A transfer request is not a completed payment. Flutterwave's documentation says a merchant can verify a transfer's status either by calling the transfer status endpoint with the transfer ID returned in the transfer response, or by listening for webhooks. A newly queued transfer has the status NEW until it completes.
The habit to build is simple: do not tell a supplier "paid" until the status says the transfer completed, and do not record the payment in your books on the strength of the request alone.
Transfers to domiciliary accounts
Some suppliers ask to be paid in dollars to a domiciliary account in Nigeria. Flutterwave's documentation says IMTO transfers to USD domiciliary accounts in Nigeria are currently unavailable and any such transfer attempt will automatically fail. "Currently" refers to the date of that page, so check again before you promise a supplier this route, and agree another way to pay in the meantime.
Recording the supplier payment in Achekam
Achekam does not send money. Paying a supplier in Achekam only records the payment, and no bank payment file is produced for suppliers. The transfer itself happens in Flutterwave, and the record of it happens in your books.
What Achekam does is keep the payable side in order. A business records supplier bills line by line with VAT, a bill without a purchase order waits for approval before it posts, and a bill can be paid in full or in parts from a chosen bank account. Recording the Flutterwave transfer as a payment against the right bill, from the account the money actually left, keeps the supplier's balance accurate. A business also keeps one supplier list with duplicate checks by name, so the same supplier is not set up twice with two different bank accounts.
On bank details, Achekam applies a strict rule on the payroll side: an employee's bank account entered or changed by one person must be verified by another person before it is paid in the payment schedule or bank file. Achekam states no equivalent rule for supplier bank details, so adopt the same discipline yourself: one person enters a supplier's new or changed account, a different person confirms it with the supplier through a known contact, and only then is a transfer sent. Paying suppliers through Paystack works on similar lines; see Paystack transfers to suppliers.
A payout checklist
- Account approved, IP addresses whitelisted, API transfers enabled.
- Enough naira in the NGN wallet for the transfer, or for the fee on a cross-currency transfer.
- Bank code and account number from the supplier's written details, with the name confirmed.
- A unique reference and a narration naming the bill.
- Status checked until the transfer completes.
- Payment recorded against the bill, from the correct account, after completion.
- Any change to a supplier's bank details confirmed by a second person before use.
Checking before each transfer is always cheaper than chasing a payment sent to the wrong account.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
