Best naira on-ramp and off-ramp APIs, compared

If you need to collect naira from a Nigerian bank transfer and turn it into USDC or USDT in code, the providers that do both halves are Yellow Card, Daya API and Juicyway. Fincra, Paystack and Flutterwave all collect naira and publish a price for it, but each one stops at a fiat balance.

Daya API settles a naira on-ramp three ways: on-chain to Base, into an internal balance, or straight out as a naira bank payout. Paystack and Flutterwave settle into a naira balance only. Every fee on this page came off each company's own pages on 23 September 2026.

What does a naira on-ramp API actually have to do?

A naira on-ramp API has two separate jobs, and most providers are only good at one of them.

1. Collect the naira. Give your customer a Nigerian account number to pay into, confirm the money landed, and tell your system about it.
2. Convert it and settle it. Turn that naira into USDC or USDT at a rate you quoted before the customer paid, then put the stablecoin somewhere you can use it.

An off-ramp is the same two jobs backwards. You collect USDC or USDT from a customer, and you pay naira into their Nigerian bank account. The reason this split matters when you're choosing a provider is that the card gateways are very good at the first job and don't do the second one at all. Pick one of those and you're building the conversion, the rate handling, the custody and the compliance yourself.

Which naira on-ramp and off-ramp APIs can a Nigerian developer use?

Six providers are worth comparing, and they fall into two groups. Yellow Card, Daya API and Juicyway move naira and stablecoins in one integration. Fincra, Paystack and Flutterwave handle the naira side with published pricing and no stablecoin leg. The table below is about what each one does, not what it charges.

Where each one is documented:

• Yellow Card's API suite
• The Daya API documentation
• Juicyway's developer docs
• Fincra's pricing page
• Paystack's pricing page
• Flutterwave's Nigeria pricing

What do naira on-ramp and off-ramp APIs charge?

The published prices sit on the naira collection side. Paystack charges 1.5% plus ₦100 on a local transaction, capped at ₦2,000, with the ₦100 waived below ₦2,500. Flutterwave charges 2% on local transactions, plus 7.5% VAT. Fincra charges 1% per naira transaction, capped at ₦300.

• Paystack: 1.5% + ₦100 on local cards and transfers, capped at ₦2,000, with the ₦100 waived under ₦2,500. International cards are 3.9% + ₦100. A dedicated virtual account costs 1% per transaction, capped at ₦300. Payouts are ₦10, ₦25 or ₦50 depending on size.
• Flutterwave: 2% on local transactions, made up of a 1.4% transaction fee and a 0.6% platform fee. International cards are 4.8%. Payouts are ₦10, ₦25 or ₦50. Everything carries 7.5% VAT on top.
• Fincra: 1% per naira transaction capped at ₦300, core API access free, a $2,000 monthly minimum that's waived for the first three months, a 0.5% FX fee on major currencies and a 1.0% FX markup.
• Yellow Card: priced per account through its sales team.
• Juicyway: no fee on transfers between Juicyway accounts, and everything else quoted per account.

Daya API puts the number where a developer needs it, inside the quote. Its rates endpoint returns a naira-to-stablecoin rate with the fee already in it, a minimum naira deposit, and an expiry timestamp. What you show a customer before they pay is what the conversion produces, which is the awkward part to reconcile when the price and the rate arrive from two different places.

Where does Daya API fit?

Daya API is built for one corridor rather than fifty: naira in, USDC or USDT out, and naira back out again. In version 0.1 of its rates endpoint, naira is the only currency you can convert from. If you need Kenyan shillings or Ghanaian cedis in the same integration, Yellow Card covers 50+ local currencies and is the better pick for that.

What the narrow scope buys you:

1. A quote that holds. A Daya API rate is valid for about 30 minutes and a new one is issued roughly every 10 minutes, so you can show a customer a number and honour it.
2. Three settlement routes. On-chain to Base, into an internal balance, or straight out as a naira bank payout.
3. Both account types. NGN virtual accounts for local bank transfers, and USD virtual accounts for tier-2-verified customers collecting dollars.
4. Payouts past naira. NGN, USD by ACH or wire, and SWIFT, to saved or inline recipients.
5. A sandbox with testnet assets, so the whole flow runs before real money touches it.

Webhooks cover deposits, transfers and verification events, and all of it sits in the Daya API documentation.

Can you use Paystack or Flutterwave as a naira on-ramp?

You can use Paystack or Flutterwave to collect the naira, and plenty of Nigerian crypto products do exactly that. Neither one converts naira into stablecoins, so the conversion, the rate quoting, the custody and the compliance would all be yours to build and to answer for.

That's a reasonable build if you already hold stablecoin liquidity and have a treasury process behind it. It's a lot of work if what you wanted was one integration. Yellow Card, Daya API and Juicyway each do both halves in one call path, and on Daya API that's one rates call and one funding account, with the naira arriving as USDC or USDT on Base.

Do you need a licence to run a naira on-ramp in Nigeria?

If your product takes naira from Nigerians and hands them digital assets, Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission expects the firm doing that to sit inside its regulatory net. The way in for a new firm is the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme, which the SEC describes as a controlled environment for onboarding digital asset and investment service providers.

What that means for you: admission gives a firm an Approval-in-Principle, not a final licence, and it comes with conditions the SEC can enforce. The SEC cleared seven firms into the programme on 2 July 2026, among them Luno Fintech Nigeria, Koinkoin Global Network and GetEquity, and Nairametrics reported participants reaching 14 by August 2026.

Three things to ask a provider before you build on it:

1. Which legal entity holds the approval, and is it the entity on your contract?
2. What happens to customer funds if that approval is withdrawn?
3. Who owns KYC on your customers, you or the provider?

This is the part of the choice that isn't a fee comparison, and it's the one that costs most to get wrong.

What should you check before you pick a naira on-ramp provider?

Price is rarely what breaks a naira on-ramp integration. What breaks it is a rate that moved between the quote and the payment, or a deposit that lands with nothing to tie it back to a customer. Six things are worth checking on any provider's docs before you commit.

• How long a quoted rate stays valid, and what the API does when it expires mid-payment.
• Whether virtual accounts carry your customer's name or are pooled, because that decides how you reconcile a payment.
• Which webhook events exist, especially for a failed or partial deposit.
• Minimums, on the naira deposit and on the stablecoin withdrawal.
• Payout rails past naira, if you'll ever need ACH, wire or SWIFT.
• Whether the sandbox uses testnet assets, so you can test the on-chain leg properly rather than mocking it.

If you're earlier than this and still working out the shape of the thing, stablecoin on- and off-ramps for developers in Africa covers the ground, and how to build a crypto on-ramp in Nigeria walks through a build. Why the USDT/NGN rate you're quoted is often wrong is worth reading before you trust any single rate source.