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The Payment Processing Company Connecting Africa To The World

Every business operating in the 21st century appreciates the importance of having an online presence. Not only does it ensure that you have a platform to directly engage with customers, it also presents the unique opportunity of increased sales as well as the prospect of breaking geographical barriers to deliver products and services to customers who are not in the immediate locality of your business. The prospects are limitless and could see a business that operates in, say Lagos Nigeria, having its customer base stretching as far as Boston Massachusetts in the United States or Hong-Kong in China.

There has however been a problem which has hindered many African Businesses, especially small scale enterprises, over the years from leveraging upon the exposure provided by the internet to grow their businesses, namely payment processing. Carrying out international transactions to Africa have often proven to be a hassle for consumers, with problems spanning from delayed payments, declined transactions, unavailability of payment platforms and a host of others. In the light of the fact that no matter how wonderful a product may be and how much interest it may have generated from consumers, it all comes to nought if people are not able to purchase them, we can see how this problem has been one that had threatened the growth of African businesses over the years.

This was the exact problem Flutterwave set out to tackle back in 2016 when it was founded by the duo of Iyin Aboyeji and Olugbenga Agboola with the vision of 'opening up the global market to Africans and empowering more Africans than ever before to participate in the global economy.'In a market where many popular web services like Stripe, Paypal, and Airbnb had excluded many African countries in their international launches due to the difficulty in processing payments there, Flutterwave has thrived and become the payment platform of choice making it easier to do business across the continent by allowing users to make international payments in their own currencies.

Flutterwave launched it signature product 'Rave' which is targeted at helping businesses and banks build secure and seamless payments solutions for their customers. With Rave, sellers are able to integrate payment gateways into their websites at no upfront cost, making them able to directly trade with customers at home and abroad. One of the unique advantage of Rave is the fact that users get to pay in their local currency, either from their cards, bank accounts or mobile wallets and the sellers get settled instantly. This remarkably improves customer experience, saving them the stress of conversion between amounts and even helps them avoid high conversion fees. Also, Businesses are able to have an up-to-date and detailed account of all transactions from all sources in one place. Flutterwave has also been able to expand its reach to allow international school feed payment and have allowed parents with children schooling abroad make payments with incredible ease as well as settle medical bills abroad, both of which are multi-million dollar industries enjoying patronage of many Africans.

Another financial product which Flutterwave offers is Barter. Officially known as GetBarter, it allows an individuals operate a personal online wallet from which they can make and receive payments, access loans and even manage their personal finances. With Barter, customers can add their existing bank accounts to their app dashboards and manage funds in their local currencies with insights and statistics on their spending patterns.

Flutterwave stays in business by charging a small commission on each transaction processed through its platforms, and this commission is shared with banks and other financial institutions that help keep their API working.

After graduating from reputed Silicon Valley startup accelerator, Y-Combinator and has had two series of funding exceeding $20 million. It has it's head office situated in San-Francisco USA. For a payments company seeking to create payment solutions for the African continent, this may seem like an odd choice, however, co-founder and former CEO , Iyin Aboyeji attributed the reason for this decision to the need to stay within a globally recognised hub for financial technology as well as the need to build trust with investors (and this may point to the unfortunate reputation that some African Nations have as a haven for fraudulent activities).

Flutterwave however also maintains offices in various African Cities including; Lagos Nigeria, Nairobi Kenya, and has plans to expand to over 5 more African countries within the next 2 years.

Flutterwave is passionate about its technology roots and continues to maintain close ties with the developer community. It is known to have recently sponsored programs like the HNG Internship (a virtual internship program organised by hotels.ng) and put together Developer Recruitment events. It of course has a lot at stake in ensuring that as many developers as possible are knowledgeable about integrating it's payment gateways in their websites and choose flutterwave ahead of those of other competitors.

Since it's inception in 2016, Flutterwave has processed over 2.6 Billion Dollars in transaction value via it's platforms, and this number continues to grow as it wins the hearts and patronage of many small businesses around Africa. Flutterwave's recent partnership with Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba's payment platform (AliPay) could mean that Flutterwave is at a new frontier and gearing up to unleash, a new spurt of growth in China-Africa trade, a market which is already estimated to be worth over $200 billion.

The payments space in Africa is expected to become even more competitive in years to come especially with the entry of new players O-pay and continuous presence of longtime players Inter-switch and many others, however Flutterwave is definitely blazing the path with it's innovative products and payment technology.

The future is indeed exciting for African Businesses and Africans as they look to take their place in the global economy, unleashing prosperity on the continent like never before.

You can find out more about Flutterwave here: https://www.flutterwave.com/