Flutterwave has secured a banking licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), enabling the fintech firm to expand beyond payments and offer a wider range of financial services across Africa.
The development comes after the company revealed it has processed over $40 billion in transactions over the past decade, positioning it to provide businesses with integrated banking tools, fund management, and scalable financial solutions on a single platform.
Founder and CEO, Olugbenga Agboola, described the approval as a major milestone in the company’s journey.
“Today, Flutterwave announces a Nigerian banking license. It is a defining step in our 10-year journey to build the financial infrastructure powering Africa’s future.
“A decade ago, we started with a simple belief: better infrastructure changes everything. Payments failed too often, settlement was slow, and expanding meant rebuilding from scratch. So we focused on connecting what was fragmented,” he said.
Founded in 2016, Flutterwave began as a payment infrastructure provider simplifying cross-border transactions and has since expanded across several African markets. Its recent acquisition of Mono further strengthened its ecosystem.
“With the acquisition of Mono earlier this year, we deepened that connectivity. Now we are going further by building a unified platform where businesses can open accounts, accept and send payments, manage payouts, run payroll, and operate across currencies in one place, with access to lending and working capital powered by real transaction data,” Agboola added.
“We can now build, innovate and solve customer problems faster than before because we now control the value chain of payments in Nigeria. Our destiny is now in our hands.”