By Ismail Azeez
African fintech giant Flutterwave has announced the acquisition of a Nigerian banking license, marking a major milestone in its 10-year journey to build financial infrastructure across the continent.
The company, in a statement shared on its verified X account on Thursday, described the development as a “defining step” toward reshaping Africa’s financial ecosystem.
According to the statement, the acquisition follows a decade of building payment infrastructure aimed at solving fragmentation across African markets, during which the company also acquired open finance platform Mono earlier this year to deepen financial connectivity.
With the banking licence now secured, Flutterwave said it is building a unified platform where businesses can open accounts, accept and send payments, manage payouts, run payroll, and operate across currencies in 1 place, with access to lending and working capital powered by real transaction data.
“Businesses can now run their entire financial operations seamlessly, while developers can build new financial products directly on our infrastructure at scale,” the company stated.
The fintech firm added that the licence gives it greater control over the payments value chain in Nigeria, positioning it to build, innovate, and resolve customer challenges at a faster pace than before.
“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,” the statement read.
Flutterwave said the broader vision is to reimagine banking for Africa’s future, faster, smarter, and built for scale.