It’s rather unfortunate that only form of payment for adsense earnings available for Nigerians is by Cheque. Worse yet, it’s a US Dollar cheque and many Nigerian bloggers find this rather inconvenient as you have to wait for like a week or two before the cheque arrives and it takes up to twenty working days before the cheque is cleared at your local bank.
It’s even more annoying because the banks see this as an avenue to make money off publishers and force one to share a reasonable chunk with them. There are other payment options available in other countries like Paypal and Western Union but Nigerians are definitely stuck with the US cheque option at the moment.
Are you wondering how to cash out a US Dollar cheque here in Nigeria? It’s quite easy but only takes some time. You have to first open a domiciliary account though. This is a US Dollar account you can operate at your local bank and this is the account in which your cheque will be paid into. I use Guarantee Trust Bank and it only took $100 (about 15,000) to open this account. To open a domiciliary account, you must have:
-a government issued ID card (National ID card or driver’s license) or international passport
-a recent utility (probably PHCN bill)
-two referees each operating a current account in any Nigerian bank (preferably in your bank of choice for quick verification)
Like I said, I used GTB and that’s all I provided. Some banks like Intercontinental Bank charde $150 while some like First Bank will ask you to open their domiciliary account with $500! The choice is definitely yours.
After opening the account, simply go to your bank and drop the cheque for processing. It takes like twenty one days and the cash is right in your account! It’s as easy as that.
Let’s only hope Google makes the Western Union option available for Nigeria pretty soon cuz seriously, this cheque thingy kinda takes too long.