Nigeria / Africa

Accept Interswitch
without building the integration

Interswitch is the payments infrastructure company much of Nigeria's card and switching network runs on, and its Interswitch Payment Gateway offers merchants cards, USSD, bank transfer and QR through one integration. Being the incumbent switch rather than a challenger is its distinguishing characteristic — depth of bank connectivity over product polish.

  • NGN
  • USD
Nigeria / Africa
4 payment methods
0% PaymentHood fee
Interswitch
Region
Nigeria / Africa
Methods
4
Credentials
Server-side only
PaymentHood fee
None
Status
Live
At a glance

Interswitch in summary

Coverage
  • Nigeria
  • Ghana
  • Kenya
  • Uganda
  • Gambia

Among the markets Interswitch serves — their own list is authoritative (opens in new tab).

Currencies
  • NGN
  • USD

Among those supported. Which ones your account can charge in depends on its registered country.

Fees
Set and billed by Interswitch, and published on their pricing page (opens in new tab). PaymentHood adds nothing on top, at any volume.

Written against Interswitch's own documentation on . This page deliberately states no fees, no counts and no completeness claims, because those change without notice — for anything you are about to build on, Interswitch's own documentation (opens in new tab) is the authority.

Payment methods

What your customers can pay with

Every method below runs through the same PaymentHood checkout. Turning one on or off is a dashboard setting, not a code change.

Cards

Verve, Visa and Mastercard, local and international

USSD

Bank shortcodes for customers without a smartphone

Bank transfer

Direct transfer confirmed against the order

QR

Scan-to-pay at checkout

Integration

What PaymentHood handles for you

A direct Interswitch integration is not just an API call. These are the parts every team ends up rebuilding — and the parts PaymentHood ships already done.

Credentials
Client ID and secret exchanged for an access token, held server-side in PaymentHood
Webhook security
Signed transaction notification, validated before an order is released
Payment verification
Server-side transaction query against the Interswitch API before fulfilment
  • Idempotent charge creation, so a retried request never double-charges a customer
  • Automatic failover to another configured provider when Interswitch is unreachable
  • One reconciliation view across Interswitch and every other provider you run
  • Provider credentials never reach the storefront or the customer's browser
  • Adding or switching a provider later is a dashboard change, not a re-integration
Setup

Connecting Interswitch takes three steps

1

Open your Interswitch account

Register directly with Interswitch and complete their onboarding. Funds settle from Interswitch into your own bank account — PaymentHood never holds merchant money.

2

Add the credentials to PaymentHood

Paste your Interswitch API credentials into the PaymentHood dashboard. They are stored server-side and never exposed to your storefront.

3

Enable it at checkout

Install the PaymentHood plugin for your platform, paste your PaymentHood API key, and Interswitch appears as a payment option. Test in sandbox, then switch to live.

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Naira is the primary settlement currency, with multi-currency acceptance and USD settlement available for eligible flows. Confirm your own account's currency support with Interswitch rather than assuming it.

Verve is Nigeria's domestic card scheme and a large share of Nigerian debit cards carry it. A checkout that only takes Visa and Mastercard will decline a meaningful number of otherwise-good Nigerian cards.

Card penetration is lower than transfer usage, and card declines are common. A checkout offering a one-time virtual account number — the customer transfers from any bank app and the payment confirms in seconds — will convert materially better than one offering cards alone. It is the single most important local method to enable.

No. Interswitch bills you directly for its own fees, and PaymentHood takes no percentage and no per-transaction cut at any volume. See PaymentHood pricing.

Start accepting Interswitch payments

Free plugin, no PaymentHood transaction fee, and the option to add another provider later without touching your checkout.