First Bank Nigeria has just announced a sealed partnership with PayPal that will enable customers use the payment service right from their Internet Banking portal.

This arrangement gives FirstBank the exclusive ability to allow her Internet banking customers open a PayPal account right from their FirstOnline account.

First Bank customers also get automatic verification of their PayPal accounts.

The motivation behind PayPals decision to integrate exclusively with First Bank is not far fetched considering 30% of the bank accounts in Nigeria are reported to be First Bank accounts.

First Bank ATMs dispensed 1.7 trillion Naira last year, more than the whole industry dispensed in 2011. First bank accounts for more than 40 per cent of active Interswitch cards.

They claim 90 per cent are active with 250 transactions per second projected to reach 100 per second and their mobile money offering, FirstMonie has 1.5m active users.

The Paypal partnership will also allow FirstBank card holders and businesses enjoy increased transaction limits, receive instant verifications, make online payments and transfer funds across the world in 193 countries and regions globally.

First Bank also announced that in the coming months, First Bank merchants will be able to receive payments via a First Bank PayPal wallet. Acceptance of First Bank Verve cards is also in the works.

Currently only Visa and Master cards are accepted on PayPal. For some perspective, there are currently 18 million Verve cards in Nigeria, of which First bank owns 35 percent of the share.