Question 1

What does Allawee Card Issuance API do?

Accepted Answer

Allawee Card Issuance API is a Nigerian Banking-as-a-Service platform that enables fintech companies, microfinance institutions, and digital platforms to issue physical and virtual payment cards, create bank accounts, process transfers, and perform credit decisioning through a single API integration. Allawee provides the regulated infrastructure for card issuance and banking operations, allowing partner platforms to offer branded financial products without obtaining independent banking or card scheme licenses.

Card issuance is the foundational capability of the Allawee platform. Partner applications can issue Mastercard or Verve physical cards linked to customer accounts through the API, enabling customers of the partner platform to receive a physical payment card they can use at POS terminals, ATMs, and online merchants across Nigeria and globally where the card scheme is accepted. Physical card issuance involves card personalization (embossing customer name and card details), printing, and delivery to customer addresses, all manageable through API calls that initiate the card production and fulfillment workflow.

Bank account creation through Allawee enables partner platforms to create functional Nigerian bank accounts for their customers, complete with a NUBAN (Nigerian Uniform Bank Account Number) that is compatible with all Nigerian interbank transfer systems including NIP (NIBSS Instant Payment). Customer accounts created through Allawee can receive inbound transfers from any Nigerian bank and initiate outbound transfers to any Nigerian bank account, providing full interbank connectivity through a single BaaS API integration.

Spend controls in the Allawee Card API allow partner platforms to set per-transaction limits, daily spending limits, merchant category restrictions, and geographic restrictions on issued cards. A Nigerian fintech issuing employee expense cards can configure spending controls that prevent cards from being used at non-approved merchant categories. An agricultural platform issuing input finance cards can restrict spending to agricultural input supplier merchant categories, ensuring that financed funds are used for their intended purpose.

Credit data decisioning from Allawee leverages transaction history and behavioral patterns on the platform to generate credit scores and lending signals that partner platforms can use for automated loan underwriting decisions. For Nigerian lending platforms that issue cards to their borrowers and want to build repayment history and credit profile data from card usage patterns, Allawee's credit decisioning API provides structured credit signals from the same ecosystem where the lending relationship operates.

Tokenization support in the Allawee platform enables issued cards to be added to digital wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay) by card holders, extending card usability to contactless mobile payments in addition to physical card and online payments. As contactless payment adoption grows among Nigerian consumers particularly in Lagos and other major cities, tokenization support adds a distribution channel for issued cards that increases their day-to-day utility.

Dispute management through the Allawee API provides structured workflows for handling card transaction disputes — unauthorized transactions, merchant disputes, technical failures — that partner platforms can initiate programmatically when customers report problems. Automated dispute initiation reduces the manual operational burden of handling customer complaints about card transactions and provides systematic tracking of dispute status and resolution.

The CBN regulatory compliance infrastructure behind Allawee means that partner platforms are leveraging a regulated entity's banking and card scheme relationships rather than needing to independently establish CBN licensing, Mastercard or Verve principal membership, and the capital requirements those entail. This significantly lowers the barrier for Nigerian fintechs to add card and banking features to their products, compressing the typical 12-24 month timeline for independent licensing into an API integration that can be completed in days or weeks.

Question 2

How much does Allawee Card Issuance API cost?

Accepted Answer

Allawee Card Issuance API is free to start, with paid tiers for higher usage (freemium). Free tier available for testing; paid tiers for production use with transaction-based pricing. Exact pricing available upon request.

Question 3

How do I authenticate with the Allawee Card Issuance API API?

Accepted Answer

Bearer Token (API Key)

Question 4

Is there a rate limit on Allawee Card Issuance API?

Accepted Answer

Not publicly specified; contact support for details

Question 5

Does Allawee Card Issuance API offer a sandbox or test mode?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Allawee Card Issuance API provides a sandbox or test environment so you can integrate and test before going live.

Question 6

What is Allawee Card Issuance API best suited for?

Accepted Answer

Nigerian fintech startups, neobanks, microfinance institutions, and lending platforms needing CBN-compliant card issuance and payment infrastructure.

Question 7

Is there anything else I should know before integrating Allawee Card Issuance API?

Accepted Answer

Allawee is regulated through Providus Bank PLC partnerships — not a bank itself. Test mode requires no KYC and offers full feature parity. Production access requires standard business documentation and KYC timelines.

Question 8

Where can I find Allawee Card Issuance API's documentation?

Accepted Answer

The official API documentation is at https://docs.allawee.com/. The provider's website is https://allawee.com/.

Question 9

Does Allawee Card Issuance API support Nigerian developers?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Allawee Card Issuance API explicitly supports Nigerian developers/use cases.

Allawee Card Issuance API

Features Included

Not Supported

Key Highlights

Required Access Documents

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