How to Get UBA Africard in Nigeria, Activate and Load It

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Do you want to know how to get UBA Africard in Nigeria, activate and load it? If yes, I will provide you with the step-by-step guide on how you can get it and use if for online transaction.

PS: I’m writing this from my own personal experience. I mean, how I got my own UBA Africard in Nigeria within 3 hours! Few months ago, I was confused on how really to get the card because I have never heard about a special card apart from the famous “MasterCard”, “VISA card” and “Verve”. All these cards are limited to some function and can’t really be used broadly as the Prepaid VISA card issued by UBA.

Now, let go to the main topic:

What is UBA Prepaid Card or Africard in Nigeria

Africard is a prepaid card issued by the United Bank for Africa, UBA.

If you’re familiar with using the like of Mastercards for online transaction, then there’s no need to get long definition for the UBA Africard.

But I must tell you that it’s originally a “VISA card”.

The only difference between other VISA card and UBA Africard in Nigeria is that, it’s PREPAID!

Just like when you’re using a prepaid meter in your house. If you load the meter, you’ll have electricity power in your house. But if you refused to load it, there’s no way you can see the blink of electricity even if the whole town are enjoying it.

Same thing applied to the UBA Africard, It’s a prepaid card that is useful only when you load funds (money) on it.

UBA Group said:

The Prepaid Card (Africard) is not in any way linked to your regular bank account with any financial institution in Nigeria. That gives you the ability to do and undo with the card. Meaning, you spend what you load.

As simple like that but powerful….

Getting your UBA Africard in Nigeria is so easily but many entrepreneurs outside there don’t know what the card is used for, while some entrepreneurs know how to use it but don’t know how and where to get it.

I don’t know which category you fell into but this blog post will hold your hands from starting till using the card. But you may want to know:

The Benefits of UBA Africard (Prepaid Card) in Nigeria

I will mention few but most important benefits that may interest you. They are:

  • You can use buy anything from any online shopping sites in the world without any headache
  • You can have UBA Africard in Nigeria without having a bank account with UBA at all
  • The card is not linked to any of your accounts
  • You can use it to verify PayPal account in Nigeria and enable the most core feature of using PayPal
  • You can get it immediately or few minutes after you request for it
  • According to UBA, the Africard or UBA prepaid card can be used at over 30 million retail outlets across the globe
  • Can be used conveniently with the UBA mobile banking
  • UBA Africard or Prepaid card is secured
  • You can manage your card yourself
  • And so on…….

Interesting, right?

Now, you may asking what you needed to get the card. Here are they:

Requirement to Get UBA Africard in Nigeria

Just like I got my own, here are the prerequisites:

  • A passport photograph
  • A utility bill (e.g NEPA bill)
  • Means of Identification like National ID card, Driving licence and any government issued document
  • Your Bank Verification Number, BVN
  • Some funds to load (but not compulsory to load immediately)

Those are the few stuffs you need to get together and boldly apply for the UBA Africard or Prepaid Card in Nigeria.

Now let talk about how to put these into use:

How to Get UBA Africard or Prepaid Card in Nigeria

1.      Visit the Bank

Unfortunately, you can’t apply for this card online or any other bank than to visit the nearest UBA business office or branch in your area, with the aforementioned requirements to get your Africard or UBA prepaid card.

PSS: UBA branch office is so far to my place, I will have to spend some bucks for transportation. So, to safe the expense, I have to call the bank if the card is available and unfortunately, it wasn’t. They said it’s going to be available in 3 business days and I called again after the 3 business days to confirm and it was then available.

So, I will advise you to call the bank first before you visit them because, AFRICARD or the UBA prepaid card is not always used as other type of card, which the branch office may not have in store because of that.

2.      Ask the Customer Care that you need “AFRICARD” or “PREPAID CARD”

You need to be careful when you get to the bank in order to request for the UBA Africard because you might be misled.

When I got to the UBA business office in my area, the lady that attended to me was trying to get me “MasterCard” thinking that “CARD” is “Card”. But I told her I don’t need MasterCard or VISA card but I need “AFRICARD”. Then she directed me to meet an officer in care of Cards collection in the bank and immediately, the man grabbed what I was asking for.

Tell and remind the bank staff that attend to you that you need ‘UBA Africard’.

PS: Note that there’s are 4 types of UBA Africard available and you should be careful enough before you choose. In fact, let me tell you about types:

Types of UBA Africard or Prepaid Card in Nigeria

There are four types of UBA Africard in Nigeria, they are:

  1. UBA Nigeria NGN Local High
  2. UBA Nigeria NGN Local Low
  3. UBA Nigeria NGN International High
  4. UBA Nigeria NGN International Low

Basically we have “Local” and “International” UBA Prepaid Card but each of them have their own limit as “High” or “Low”.

If you choose any of the first two listed above, please note that you can’t do any transaction outside Nigeria as the name implies “LOCAL” which is just like using the “Verve Card” and…..

If you choose any of the last two UBA Africard listed above, you can do international transaction but the “international High” is the best.

So, tell the staff attending to you the type of card you need.

If the card is available, you’ll be giving a form to fill.

3.      Fill the UBA Africard or Prepaid Card’s Application Form Correctly

The application form is now in your hand, fill legibly without making any mistake.

The form is not hard to fill at all. Write your BVN at the top of the application form but if you don’t know your BVN, on your registered phone number with your bank, dial x565x0# and your BVN will be shown to you.

I need to tell you this:

There’s a place in the form that asked if you’re either the “Owner” or “Tenant” of the house address you provided.

If you choose “OWNER”, you will to provide the said “Utility Bill or NEPA bill” I told you to prepare under the requirements. But if you choose “TENANT”, you don’t need the utility bill (…… as at the time I got my own UBA Africard in Nigeria).

After you have filled the form, give it back to the card collection officer that gave you.

4.      You Card will be Given to You

Finally, you card will be given to you and the next thing is to activate it!

I’m going to tell you how you can activate your UBA Prepaid card without visiting the branch office.

Here is how:

How to Activate UBA Africard in Nigeria using ATM & Online Portal

There are two ways you must activate your UBA Prepaid Card. The first one is activating at the ATM gallery and the second is using online portal…

Both ways will finally get your card in use. Here is how to do it:

  1. Activating UBA Africard with ATM

This is just as simple as when you changed your previous (mastercard) password after collecting.

Changing of password is the means to activate your account, and this require previous password. So, how can you get your UBA Africard previous or default passcode?

There is a sheet of paper with information about your prepaid card, on the sheet of paper is your hidden passcode which you will use for both ATM and online activating.

At the front of the sheet (where UBA logo is at the top right-hand corner), you will see something like scratch card but not actually meant to be scratched. You only need to peel the orange light nylon used to cover the blank area.

Note that the two passcode are written on the nylon.

The ATM PIN is at the top while the WEB PIN is below it. Note that each are 4-digits.

Now go to the nearest UBA ATM gallery and slot in your new AFRICARD or UBA prepaid card, change the PIN by first entering your default PIN, then NEW PIN…

If you’ve successfully did that, congrats.

The next thing is to activate on your PC or Smartphone.

  1. Activating UBA Africard with Web service (smartphone or PC)

Follow these steps to activate your UBA Africard in Nigeria using your smartphone:

This may confuse you, I mean the Client ID and you may be asking…

What is UBA Africard’s Client ID and Where to Find It?

The UBA Prepaid Card’s client ID is 10-digits numbers which is special and different for every prepaid card.

Note that the UBA Prepaid Card’s Client ID is not your account number, it can be found on the card.

To find your client ID, turn you card to the back where there’s black stripe.

You will see a number written at the right hand side at the back of the card, very close to the bar code.

So after finding your UBA Africard’s Client ID, check your “WEB” passcode just below the PIN you used to activate your card at the ATM gallery.

  • After you’ve successfully login with your Client ID and WEB PIN, follow the rest information and answer accordingly.

You will be asked to choose and set up 3 security questions, change your username and PIN and finally confirm everything by entering the code sent to your phone number.

That’s all about activating your UBA Africard in Nigeria and any other African countries using UBA prepaid card.

Remember I said the card is not linked to any regular bank account. Meaning that you will need to load it each and everytime you want to use the Africard for online transaction…

But how can you do this?

How to Load or Fund Your UBA Africard in Nigeria

There are two sure ways to do this, if this is your first time.

  • One of the ways is to simply walk into nearest UBA business office or agent around with the amount you want to load in, and they will do it for you.

Note that, if you don’t have bank account UBA, you will have to go to UBA branch offices before you can be able to load money on the card.

  • The second way is so easy and it’s for those who have UBA bank account. You can load money into your Africard by simply using the UBA Mobile App or Internet Banking or Magic Banking.

I used the Mobile Banking App to load funds into my UBA prepaid card and was so easy.

  1. All you have to do is download the UBA official app, sign in by using your Client ID and PIN.
  2. After that, click on the “+” symbol you see at the top right corner of the screen and add your regular UBA account.
  3. Now to load funds, click on “Send Money” while you’re on the regular bank account screen. Then transfer more than N1,050 to the prepaid card

That’s all about loading funds into your UBA Africard in Nigeria and I hope you get it.

You can now use your UBA Prepaid Card to do any online transaction after loading it…

But here are few questions you may want to find answers to:

How much is UBA Africard Issuance Fee in Nigeria?

To get the said UBA prepaid card or Africard in Nigeria at the UBA banking hall is free but immediately you load funds into the card, the amount of N1,050 will be deducted immediately (for the card) just like when you just request for regular ATM card

What is the withdrawal fees and other Fees of UBA Africard in Nigeria?

You can see the UBA Africard fees and charges in the leaflet that accompanied your prepaid card.

But in case you misplaced it, here are the fees:

  1. Monthly maintenance cost N50 + VAT which may totally result to N52.50 but not up to N60/mo
  2. Every SMS you received just because of the card cost N4. if you received 10 SMS, that’s N40
  3. Withdrawing money with UBA Africard from UBA ATM gallery is FREE
  4. Withdrawing money with UBA Africard from any other bank’s ATM cost N65

That’s all about getting UBA Africard in Nigeria plus how you can activate and load funds to it.

If you have any question. Please use the comment box below and I will answer you promptly.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not a Staff at UBA, partner or an affiliate of UBA. I’m a blogger and internet marketer who likes to share most of his experiences and researches with great visitors like you.

If you have any issue, you can contact UBA customer care with this email: cfc@ubagroup.com

Please don’t forget to share this tips on how to get UBA Africard or Prepaid Card with your friends on social media or copy the link to recommend this post anywhere.

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Stephen Gbolagade
Stephen Gbolagadehttps://www.stephengade.com/
Stephen is a Frontend engineer, technical writer, owner and part-time blogger here at Gbolamedia, incoming data scientist, an enthusiastic cynophilist, and a curious introvert. Stephen is currently available for full-time, part-time or contract-base role. Contact him here: on WhatsApp or check him on Linkedin

20 COMMENTS

    • I requested for USD Visa prepaid card while the minimum amount to activate it is $50 but pls is there any method I can use to activate it without the $50?

  1. I really appreciate this write up. Thumb up bro.

    I want to ask, how do I link this card to the Paypal account? Or how can it be used to withdraw from Paypal? Thanks

    • Hi Jacob Phillip,

      On clicking the link, can you patiently look and the page and see “Activate Card”? If yes, then you’re good to go.

      And note than UBA Africard can’t be ordered online. You can only get it by visiting any of their branches.

      That link you say you don’t see anything is where to activate and manage your card.

  2. Very Educative Write up, Pls is this strategy still working with getting a perfectly working PayPal account?

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