Overview
Send money from your Paga business balance to more than 570 banks and financial institutions in Nigeria, buy airtime and data, and pay bills, all through the Business API.
Not sure where to start?
Compare payouts
| Payout | Sends money to | Typical use | Operations, in order |
|---|---|---|---|
| Money transfer | 570+ banks and financial institutions in Nigeria, or a Paga wallet | Supplier payments, payroll, customer withdrawals | getBanks → validateDepositToBank → depositToBank |
| Airtime and data | Any phone number on the major networks | Customer rewards, staff airtime | getMobileOperators → airtimePurchase |
| Bill payment | Billers such as electricity, TV and internet providers | Bill pay in your app, office utilities | getMerchants → getMerchantServices → getMerchantAccountDetails → merchantPayment |
Every payout follows the same pattern: look up what you need, validate the recipient, then send. To pay a Paga wallet, use Paga’s bank UUID from getBanks in the same depositToBank call you use for banks.
How a payout works
Fund your business balance
Payouts come from your Paga business balance. Check it with accountBalance before a large run.
Look up and validate
Fetch the bank, network or biller, and validate the account, phone number or customer reference. It catches typos before money moves.
Send the payout
Give every payout a unique referenceNumber and your statusCallbackUrl. Paga rejects a reference it has already seen, so you can’t pay twice by accident.
Get notified
Paga sends a notification to your statusCallbackUrl once the payout is processed. Verify it, then update your records. If nothing arrives, check the status with the same reference before trying again.
What every payout shares
Business API
All payouts use the Business API on mypaga.com, with credential headers and a request hash. See Authentication.
IP whitelisting
Requests only work from your registered server addresses. See IP whitelisting.
Validate first
Always validate the recipient before you send. A failed validation costs nothing; a payout to the wrong account is hard to recover.
Status callbacks
Send a statusCallbackUrl with each payout, and Paga notifies it when the payout is processed. See Money transfer.
One reference per payout
Store each referenceNumber before sending. On a timeout, wait for the callback or check its status instead of sending a new one.
Rebates and testing
Earn a rebate on every airtime, data and bill payment. Test with the accounts and numbers on the Test data page.
Paying lots of people at once?
Use bulk payments in the business portal, with no integration needed.
Bulk money transfers
Upload a file of recipients in the business portal to pay suppliers or run payroll.
Bulk airtime and data
Top up many phone numbers at once, for staff or customer rewards.
Approval management
Require a second person to approve bulk payments before they’re sent.
Need help? We’re here 24/7
Talk to our support team any time, or ask questions in the developer community.
Updated 4 days ago