Virtual account APIs in Nigeria, compared

A naira virtual account API gives each of your customers their own bank account number to pay into. Nine Nigerian providers offer one, and six of them publish a price. Squad charges 0.25% capped at ₦1,000, Daya API 1% capped at ₦100, Lenco 0.5% capped at ₦150, and Paystack 1% capped at ₦300.

Daya API charges 1% capped at ₦100 on an incoming naira deposit, against Paystack's 1% capped at ₦300 and Monnify's 1.5% capped at ₦2,000. That ₦100 cap is the lowest of the six, so Daya API works out cheapest on any collection above about ₦40,000. Below ₦20,000 both Squad and Lenco cost you less, and the arithmetic is further down.

This sits inside the wider question of which rails you build your naira collections on, and it's the narrowest part of it: not how you accept money, but what each provider charges when a customer transfers into an account number your code created.

What is a naira virtual account, and when do you need one?

A virtual account is a real Nigerian bank account number, a NUBAN, that your system creates on demand and assigns to a single customer. Money that customer transfers into it arrives in your balance already tagged to them, so you know who paid without asking anyone to quote a reference. Providers also call these dedicated accounts or reserved accounts, and they mean the same thing.

You need one once you're reconciling bank transfers at any real volume. The usual cases:

• A marketplace crediting a seller's wallet the moment a buyer transfers.
• A lender matching a repayment to the right loan without a reference code.
• A savings or investment app funding a customer's balance.
• Anyone collecting from customers who would rather transfer than use a card.

The alternatives are a card charge, which costs more and fails more often, or one pooled account with a payment reference, which asks the customer to get the reference right and leaves you matching payments by hand when they don't. Nigerian customers transfer, so the account number is usually the right product.

Which naira virtual account APIs can a Nigerian developer use?

There are nine, and a few are easy to confuse with something else, so here they are with their addresses:

1. Paystack (paystack.com), which calls the product a Dedicated Virtual Account.
2. Flutterwave (flutterwave.com).
3. Monnify (monnify.com), the payments product from Moniepoint, which calls them reserved accounts.
4. Fincra (fincra.com).
5. Squad (squadco.com), the payments product from GTCO.
6. Kora (korahq.com), formerly Korapay, which moved off the korapay.com domain.
7. Anchor (getanchor.co).
8. Lenco (lenco.co), whose API price list is a separate document from its business banking one.
9. Daya API (docs.daya.co).

What does each naira virtual account API charge?

Six of the nine publish a figure, and the spread between them is wide. Squad has the lowest rate at 0.25% and Daya API the lowest cap at ₦100, which means they win at opposite ends of the transfer-size range. Monnify is the most expensive on both counts. Every figure below comes from the provider's own pricing page or documentation, read on 22 October 2026.

Two things to read carefully in that table. Monnify prices bank transfers at 1.5% capped at ₦2,000 and doesn't price reserved accounts separately, so that's its general transfer rate rather than a virtual-account rate. And Monnify states its figure exclusive of VAT, as does Flutterwave, so add 7.5% where a provider says VAT is excluded.

Fincra's price list is worth a note too, because it isn't on its pricing page. Fincra's pricing page now carries no figures at all and points you at its sales team. The real list is a spreadsheet linked from the pricing question in its developer documentation, and that's where the 1% capped at ₦1,000 comes from. A Fincra blog post from July 2025 still advertises a ₦300 cap, which the current price list contradicts, so price a build off the spreadsheet rather than the blog.

Which providers don't publish a virtual account price?

Flutterwave, Kora and Anchor. For a developer costing a build that's a real problem, because two of the three are among the best-known names in Nigerian payments and you can't work out what either would charge you without talking to someone.

• Flutterwave's Nigerian pricing page doesn't mention virtual accounts anywhere, and its developer documentation shows a fee only inside example payloads, which is sample data rather than a rate.
• Kora's documentation index carries no pricing page, and its site points you to its merchant agreement or to sales.
• Anchor publishes no rate on its documentation site. The one fee page it does have covers fees you charge your own customers, not the fees Anchor charges you.

Flutterwave's page has a second problem a developer would trip over. It gives two local collection rates, 2% and separately 1.4% plus a 0.6% platform fee, without saying which payment method each one applies to, and it carries no cap figure at all. The two add up to the same 2%, but the page never says so. Ask Flutterwave which applies to a virtual account before you build on either.

Which one is cheapest at your collection size?

Your average transfer size decides it, and the answer flips at about ₦40,000. Squad's 0.25% is the lowest rate, so it's cheapest on small transfers. Daya API's ₦100 cap is the lowest cap, so once a transfer passes ₦10,000 its fee stops growing. At ₦40,000 the two cost exactly the same, ₦100, and above that Daya API is cheaper on every single transfer.

Here is the same ₦5,000,000 month collected three different ways, which is where the flip shows up:

1. 1,000 transfers of ₦5,000. Squad ₦12,500, Lenco ₦25,000, Daya API ₦50,000, Paystack ₦50,000, Fincra ₦50,000, Monnify ₦75,000.
2. 100 transfers of ₦50,000. Daya API ₦10,000, Squad ₦12,500, Lenco ₦15,000, Paystack ₦30,000, Fincra ₦50,000, Monnify ₦75,000.
3. 10 transfers of ₦500,000. Daya API ₦1,000, Lenco ₦1,500, Paystack ₦3,000, Squad ₦10,000, Fincra ₦10,000, Monnify ₦20,000.

Same money, same month, and the cheapest provider changes twice. On small frequent transfers Squad costs a fifth of what Daya API costs; on large ones Daya API costs a tenth of what Squad costs. So the number to work out before you choose isn't the percentage, it's your median transfer, and then one multiplication.

A lender collecting ₦200,000 loan repayments and a transport app collecting ₦1,500 fares shouldn't pick the same provider, even though they are buying the same product.

Where does Daya API fit?

Daya API charges 1% capped at ₦100 on an incoming naira deposit, which is the lowest cap in this comparison. The figures live in the developer documentation at docs.daya.co, and there is a fees endpoint that returns the current schedule, so you can show a customer their fee before they pay rather than hard-coding a number that will move.

Two other things in those docs matter for this comparison. Daya API states its naira payout price as well as its collection price: ₦20 flat below ₦1,000, and 1% capped at ₦100 at or above it. And it's the only one of the nine that documents settling collected naira straight out as a stablecoin, which the next section covers.

Where Daya API isn't the pick: if your average transfer is under ₦20,000, Squad at 0.25% and Lenco at 0.5% capped at ₦150 will both cost you less, and the cap that makes Daya API cheap on large transfers does nothing for you at that size. Above it, the cap is the whole argument, and Daya API has the lowest one in the market.

Can you settle collected naira straight into a stablecoin?

On Daya API, yes. Its documentation describes an on-chain settlement option on a naira virtual account that delivers USDT to a customer's wallet on BNB Smart Chain or Polygon, so naira that arrived as a bank transfer leaves as a stablecoin without you integrating a second provider to do the conversion.

Kora documents stablecoins in the other direction, accepting USDT and USDC deposits into customer wallets on Solana, Ethereum, Tron, BNB Smart Chain and Polygon. That is a useful product and it's a different job: it takes stablecoins in, rather than sending collected naira out as one.

The other seven providers document nothing about stablecoins on the pages that carry their pricing. If naira in and stablecoin out is the flow you're building, that narrows the list to one, and the wider comparison of naira on-ramp and off-ramp APIs is the better place to start than this one.

Which banks issue the account numbers?

This is a conversion question rather than a technical one. Customers hesitate before transferring to a bank they haven't heard of, so the bank behind the NUBAN affects how many of your payments complete. Four providers publish a current list:

• Paystack: Wema Bank and Titan-Paystack, per its help centre.
• Fincra: its documentation lists Globus, Wema, Guaranty Trust, Sterling, Moniepoint, UBA and Opay as enabled.
• Kora: its documentation names Wema, Fidelity, Globus, UBA, Moniepoint, Optimus, Parallex and FCMB, dated January 2026.
• Daya API: its documentation names Flutterwave and Paystack as the providers behind the account, and says plainly that the issuing bank can differ depending on which one returns the account.

Squad, Lenco, Flutterwave and Anchor name no partner bank on the pages carrying their pricing. Monnify names one in two places and the two don't agree, so ask before you build a customer-facing promise on it.

Which virtual account API should you use?

It comes down to your median transfer size and whether the money needs to leave as a stablecoin:

• Collecting small amounts often, under about ₦20,000 a transfer: Squad's 0.25% is the lowest rate published, with Lenco's 0.5% capped at ₦150 close behind.
• Collecting ₦40,000 and up: Daya API's ₦100 cap is the lowest of the six, and the saving compounds on every transfer you take.
• Needing collected naira to settle as USDT without a second integration: Daya API is the only one of the nine that documents it.
• Wanting the largest ecosystem and the most third-party tutorials to copy from: Paystack, at 1% capped at ₦300.

Whichever you pick, read the provider's own price list or call its fee endpoint on the day you build, rather than copying a figure out of an article, including this one. Published fees move, and three of these nine providers changed what their pricing pages say this year. If you're weighing a specific provider rather than the whole field, the Fincra API alternatives and Yellow Card alternatives pieces go deeper on those two.