// build proposal · 13 aug 2026
A naira to Pix corridor, Nigeria to Brazil. What I'd build first, what it costs, and how the money actually crosses.
You asked for a simple web app. Here's the honest read: the app is the cheap part. The money movement is where the cost, the risk and the timeline actually sit. So this covers both.
// how the money moves
Naira comes in on the Nigerian side, value crosses, reais go out over Pix. What changes between v1 and v2 isn't the path. It's whose hands move the money at each step.
A sender pays into an Orbisend naira account with a reference. You confirm it, send the Pix from a Brazilian account you control, attach the receipt, mark it paid. The app's job is to make that feel instant to the customer and stay fully auditable to you.
Naira lands in a dedicated virtual account and a webhook confirms it. A Pix payout API sends the reais. Same screens, same database, different hands. That's why I build v1 against provider interfaces: swapping a person for an API is a config change, not a rewrite.
// two rules that shape v2
CBN's revised 2024 guidelines restrict IMTOs to money coming into Nigeria, require USD 1m in capital, and bar fintechs from holding the licence directly. So "we'll get an IMTO licence" isn't available to us for money leaving Nigeria. Outbound naira moves through a bank's FX channel (Form A, PTA, BTA) or through a partner already licensed for it.
Brazil's central bank stopped electronic FX providers from settling cross border payments with stablecoins on 1 October 2026. Licensed VASPs under Resolution 521 can still do it, and the authorisation transition closed on 30 October 2026. Ask any prospective partner for its authorisation number, not its deck.
// the part i won't dress up
Holding someone else's money and moving it across a border without a licence is unlicensed money transmission, in both countries. You've decided to prove demand first. That's a normal call and I'll build it. These are the controls that keep the pilot small and keep a future partner willing to onboard you:
The audit trail is the thing that makes a partner say yes later. It's in the build for that reason as much as for you.
// what will actually cost you money
Instant payout means reais already sitting in Brazil before the naira arrives. And the naira can move against you between collection and conversion. So v1 needs a rate you set daily, a margin baked into every quote, and a lock that expires in 15 to 30 minutes. Those are product decisions, not finance ones, and they're in the build.
Budget USD 10k to 50k of BRL float for a pilot. That number is yours, not mine, and it's bigger than the app.
// one question before any of this
The Nigerian community in Brazil is small. The flow more likely to be real is trade: importers paying Brazilian suppliers for sugar, agricultural goods, machinery. That's a different product. Bigger tickets, fewer transfers, invoice and documentation requirements, better margin per dollar, and far less manual processing per dollar moved.
Worth knowing which one you're building before the first user signs up. It changes the app, the compliance work, and the float.
// what v1 contains
A PWA installs to a phone home screen with no app store, no review queue, and one codebase. For a pilot that's the right call.
Not in v1: payment partner integrations, automated KYC, sanctions screening tooling, native apps, cards, a second corridor, business accounts.
// one transfer, start to finish
Two manual steps per transfer, roughly 2 to 4 minutes each. At 20 transfers a day that's someone's morning. Worth pricing into your margin now.
// cost
v1 is priced as a favour, flat, not at a rate. It's roughly 145 hours of work and I'm charging you 800 for it because you asked me directly. v2 is the real platform and it's priced as one, so plan for that number now rather than being surprised by it later.
// timeline
Running cost once live is USD 20 to 75 a month. Hosting, database, document storage, email, SMS codes, domain. The software is not the expensive part of this business.
// the money math
Take on this kind of corridor is usually 1.5% to 3.5% of volume. At USD 50k a month and 2.5%, that's about USD 1,250 gross, before FX losses and before the hours you'll both spend processing transfers by hand.
At that volume v1 pays for itself in the first month, gross. That's the case for building it cheap and small: it proves demand and gives you something real to show a partner. It doesn't pay salaries yet, and it shouldn't be asked to.
// what i need from you
// assumptions and exclusions
Assumed: one corridor, web PWA only, English only, me building solo, you supplying brand assets and legal copy, you or a partner holding the accounts on both sides and doing the manual sending.
Not included: legal and licensing fees, the BRL float, partner setup costs, compliance staffing, marketing, and the hours spent processing transfers.