Question 1

What does Woven Finance do?

Accepted Answer

Woven Finance is a Nigerian Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) infrastructure company that enables fintechs, microfinance banks, cooperatives, and digital platforms to embed banking products into their applications through a developer-first API. Woven partners with CBN-licensed Nigerian microfinance banks to provide its underlying banking infrastructure — meaning the virtual accounts and financial products that businesses build on Woven are backed by actual licensed banking institutions, not just payment licenses.

The Woven Finance developer API is documented at woven.finance/developer and provides access to virtual accounts, payouts, card payments, bank transfer collections, and direct debit mandates. Authentication uses an API Key or Bearer Token obtained through the Woven Finance developer account. SDKs and plugins are available for popular development environments, with the Woven support team providing direct assistance during integration.

The flagship Woven product is multi-bank virtual accounts. Unlike single-bank virtual accounts offered by most Nigerian gateways (which are typically backed by one specific bank), Woven Finance enables customers to be assigned virtual account numbers from multiple Nigerian microfinance banks simultaneously. This multi-bank approach significantly improves payment collection resilience — if one bank's system is experiencing downtime or NIP (Nigerian Inter-Bank Payment) routing issues, customers can use another bank's virtual account number. For wallet-based fintech apps, this means higher collection success rates and fewer failed deposits during peak periods.

The Payouts API allows platforms to disburse funds to any Nigerian bank account. The Bank Transfer Collections module enables businesses to receive payments via bank transfers into assigned virtual accounts, with real-time webhook notifications on fund arrival. The Direct Debit feature allows platforms to set up recurring debit mandates on customer accounts for subscription billing, loan repayments, or savings contributions.

Woven Finance also supports card payment acceptance, enabling platforms that want to offer multiple payment options to collect from card-holding customers without managing a separate card payment gateway integration.

A notable use case for Woven Finance is cooperative societies and savings groups. Nigerian cooperatives (ajo, esusu) can use Woven's virtual account API to assign unique collection accounts to each member — automatically reconciling monthly contributions, tracking balances, and sending notifications when a member's contribution arrives. This eliminates the manual cash collection processes that most cooperatives still rely on.

For Nigerian microfinance banks (MFBs) themselves, Woven Finance offers a platform for extending their banking infrastructure to fintech partners — allowing MFBs to participate in the growing embedded finance ecosystem by powering the backend of apps built by their fintech partners.

The sandbox environment is available for testing all Woven Finance products. Moving to live requires completing onboarding and KYC with Woven Finance and their partner MFBs. As a BaaS provider working with multiple banking partners, Woven may require additional documentation depending on the specific banking product being deployed.

From a compliance standpoint, Woven Finance operates through its partner microfinance banks, which are CBN-licensed. All customer funds held in Woven-powered virtual accounts are held in licensed bank accounts with NDIC deposit insurance protection. Woven Finance itself complies with the CBN's guidelines on Banking-as-a-Service and embedded finance.

Known challenges: Woven Finance is less publicly documented than Paystack or Flutterwave. Developer documentation is functional but less comprehensive. Integration support is primarily relationship-driven — the Woven team provides active support during onboarding but self-service documentation depth is growing.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What makes Woven Finance different from other Nigerian payment gateways? Woven's multi-bank virtual account model is a significant differentiator. Most gateways give you virtual accounts from one bank; Woven gives customers accounts from multiple banks simultaneously, improving collection resilience.

Do Woven Finance virtual accounts have NDIC deposit insurance? Yes — because Woven operates through licensed microfinance bank partners, customer funds in Woven virtual accounts benefit from NDIC insurance coverage.

Can I use Woven Finance for a savings or wallet app? Yes — Woven Finance is specifically designed for wallet and savings product infrastructure. The multi-bank virtual account product is ideal for building savings apps, digital wallets, and cooperative management systems.

Question 2

How much does Woven Finance cost?

Accepted Answer

Woven Finance is free to start, with paid tiers for higher usage (freemium). Contact Woven Finance for partnership pricing. Transaction-based fees apply. Integration support is provided during onboarding.

Question 3

How do I authenticate with the Woven Finance API?

Accepted Answer

API Key / Bearer Token (from Woven Finance developer account)

Question 4

Is there a rate limit on Woven Finance?

Accepted Answer

Not publicly specified

Question 5

Does Woven Finance offer a sandbox or test mode?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Woven Finance provides a sandbox or test environment so you can integrate and test before going live.

Question 6

What is Woven Finance best suited for?

Accepted Answer

Nigerian microfinance banks, cooperatives, and fintech platforms that need to offer multi-bank virtual accounts to their customers — enabling wallets backed by multiple Nigerian banks through a single Woven Finance API integration.

Question 7

Is there anything else I should know before integrating Woven Finance?

Accepted Answer

Woven Finance partners with Nigerian microfinance banks to provide multi-bank virtual account infrastructure. This means customers get virtual accounts with multiple backing banks simultaneously — improving collection resilience. Also offers payouts, direct debit, and card payments. Nigeria-focused.

Question 8

Where can I find Woven Finance's documentation?

Accepted Answer

The official API documentation is at https://woven.finance/developer. The provider's website is https://woven.finance.

Question 9

Does Woven Finance support Nigerian developers?

Accepted Answer

Yes — Woven Finance explicitly supports Nigerian developers/use cases.

Woven Finance

Features Included

Not Supported

Key Highlights

Required Access Documents

Use Cases

Ask question or give feedback

Sign in to participate

Discover similar API's

Ask question or give feedback

Sign in to participate