In April, Flutterwave, a pan-African fintech unicorn, secured a national microfinance banking licence via its acquisition of open banking startup Mono. It joined a rising group of Nigerian fintechs shifting into regulated banking. In January, Paystack acquired Ladder Microfinance Bank, whereas Moniepoint secured a microfinance banking licence in 2025.
African fintechs are shifting from solely processing funds to holding deposits, offering credit score and providing different banking companies. For Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, cofounder and CEO of Flutterwave, African fintechs are changing into banks as a result of funds alone are now not sufficient.
Speaking at Moonshot in Lagos on Wednesday, Agboola stated Flutterwave’s choice to receive a nationwide microfinance banking licence was pushed by the necessity to management extra of the infrastructure behind its funds enterprise.
“What we’ve seen is you cannot provide a great payment experience if you don’t control the entire stack, or at least a big piece of the stack,” Agboola stated. “And in most of those large stacks, it’s easy to source a third party who does not share the same level of focus that you have.”
Flutterwave has processed more than $40 billion in lifetime funds, giving it a big present funds enterprise to construct its banking technique round. The firm has additionally stated that greater than 2 million companies use its platform. Agboola stated the size of the funds enterprise additionally uncovered the constraints of relying on third-party monetary establishments. If a companion financial institution goes down, components of Flutterwave’s fee infrastructure can go down with it.
“We didn’t choose to do banking for the sake of banking,” Agboola stated. “We chose to do banking to create more depth for our customers.”
The transfer into banking additionally offers Flutterwave a path into lending, an space the place the corporate believes its present transaction knowledge might give it a bonus. Agboola stated Flutterwave can see how companies and shoppers use its fee infrastructure, together with when prospects try transactions with out ample funds or when companies have receivables however want working capital instantly.
However, Flutterwave’s lending technique is just not instantly centered on changing into a mass-market lender. Agboola stated the corporate is beginning with liquidity and working-capital infrastructure, together with pre-funding payouts for firms that want to make funds in Africa earlier than receiving their very own funds.
In June, Flutterwave raised a Series E round at a $3.25 billion valuation after Ripple invested an undisclosed quantity within the firm. The partnership additionally built-in Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin into Flutterwave’s fee infrastructure.
The deal was half of a bigger stablecoin technique that adopted the corporate’s partnership with Turnkey and Nuvion to launch stablecoin balances and embedded wallets supporting USDC and USDT. In June, it additionally partnered with Tempo to construct stablecoin-powered fee and settlement infrastructure for African funds.
Agboola stated the corporate is seeing companies encounter stablecoins as a sensible fee possibility, notably when paying worldwide suppliers.
“We’ve built what I call the largest deployment of stablecoins in Africa, where we support all the blockchains and stablecoins,” Agboola stated.
The enlargement is going on towards a backdrop of rising competitors between fintechs and conventional banks for management of consumers’ monetary relationships. Flutterwave says it at present operates throughout greater than 35 international locations and has greater than 50 international licences.
