Barter by Flutterwave Review: The Pros and Cons

Barter is a digital wallet built and fully supported by the tech giant, Flutterwave. The mobile application lets its users send and receive funds from anywhere in the world, pay bills, create Naira/dollar virtual cards which can be used to pay for services like Facebook Ads, Wise, Instagram Ads, Google Ads, Alibaba, Wave, Shopify etc.

Digital banks/wallets are becoming increasingly popular across Africa because they incur fewer expenses compared to traditional brick and mortar banks. They don’t have physical branches with staff and other expenses, they can in turn pass on these reduced expenses to their customers in higher interest and better efficient services.

Pros

• Dollar virtual cards with much higher monthly limits than the ones offered by traditional banks.
• Barter-to-Barter instant transfer with zero transaction fees.
• Wallet can be used to receive money from abroad and locally.
• Pay bills and utilities e.g. electricity, TV cable, waste, and so on all from one platform.

Cons

• No in-branch physical customer service.
• higher exchange rates. Barter charges the black market exchange rate for dollar payments which is usually much higher than the official rate.

Barter by Flutterwave services

Some of the services and things you can do on your Barter account include the following;

Barter-to-Barter instant transfer: You can send and receive funds instantly on the Barter universe with zero transaction fees.

International money transfer: You can also receive and send money abroad from your Barter digital wallet. The currencies supported for this include Euros; British Pounds; Kenyan, Tanzania, and Ugandan Shillings; Cedis; Naira; Rand; Canadian Dollars; USD; Rwandan Franc; Zambia Kwacha; Cameroon & Ivory Coast CFA.

Bills and utility payment:  Pay your bills effortlessly, even from abroad in just a few simple steps on Barter. Easy to use, affordable and convenient, electricity, TV cable, waste, and so on all from one platform.

Multi-Currency virtual cards: With the dollar scarcity in Nigeria, Barter allows business owners and entrepreneurs to create a physical/virtual card with a much higher spending limit than the ones provided by the banks. The cards can be funded with Nigerian Naira which gives holders a spending limit of up to $10,000 monthly to spend on Facebook Ads, Wise, Instagram Ads, Google Ads, Alibaba, Wave, Shopify etc.

What other customers are saying about Barter by Flutterwave

Users on the android app have this to say about Barter by Flutterwave;

Henry N wrote, “Just checked out the app. Nice app. Web version is just a NO-NO! Don’t even bother going to the web version. As for the mobile app, I’m impressed with how fast the local naira transfers go, both inbound and outbound. Dollar card too expensive, exchange rate is at par with street rates at best, and sometimes higher. I’d expect the app owners would have offered exchange rates well below street rates even if above bank rates. This is the real market they are missing.”

Profit Ibrahim wrote, “The App is great. I wanted to open a domiciliary account before, but on hearing about the app, I simply stopped it since I could do what I wanted with the app. My problems: 1. It should have security lock or password against unwanted access. 2. When you buy $ to your card, and want to convert back to naira, the difference is too much.”

Monday Jusaw wrote, “Very good app and virtual card… I like it more than other apps have ever used… The only issues is, try to make us sign in with fingerprint or password when we close the app, instead of going directly to the app interface and where your balance is, just like other bank app will let you sign in again when coming back to use the app. Even when I haven’t gone to sign it out by myself in the settings.’ Read more user reviews here.

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