When Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola first conceived of the company, he envisioned it as a small but mighty force – a “butterfly” that could create “ripple effects” to transform how payments worked across Africa’s fragmented countries and economies.
The inspiration came during his tenure at a central African bank that struggled to solve fundamental cross-border payment challenges for its corporate customers. Despite having operations in multiple nations, Agboola saw firsthand how regulatory barriers, lack of integrated technology, and operational inflexibility made it “impossible” for the bank to pay staff or facilitate money transfers between countries quickly.
“I said to my manager, ‘Why are we doing this?'” Agboola recounts. “Sending money from Lagos to Ghana took longer than if you physically got on a plane with cash.”
The Flutterwave CEO realized that a nimble fintech could bridge these fundamental gaps by becoming a trusted third party partnered directly with banks and payment providers. He wanted to build the technology rails that could unify different payment methods like mo, such as money and bank transfers, within countries, enabling real-time settlement across national borders.
“We wanted to be like a butterfly that can create a ripple effect in the ecosystem and make waves despite being tiny,” says Agboola, explaining the meaning behind Flutterwave’s name. “There was a need for a player in the middle of all the banks to provide simplified payment services for a small margin.”
After launching its pioneering platform in 2016, Flutterwave quickly grew from facilitating enterprise payments to servicing merchants, consumers, crowdfunding platforms, and more. The fintech’s ability to enable real-time, cross-border transactions catalyzed e-commerce and opened new markets for Pan-African businesses.
“If a small merchant in Johannesburg wanted to sell to someone in Nigeria before, the only option was a slow wire transfer holding up releases of goods,” notes the CEO. “With Flutterwave indicating the payment is trusted, merchants can ship out products instantly.”
Building that CRI payments infrastructure and integrating locally relevant features in each country allowed Flutterwave to generate user trust and adoption rapidly. Each embraced a localization strategy centered on “giving people what payment method they’re very comfortable with within their marketplace.”
Now valued at over $3 billion, Flutterwave focuses more on payment barriers to empower a new generation of African entrepreneurs and cross-border businesses. The company continues to launch into launch ducts, partnerships, and payment rails tuned for the continent’s needs.
“There is still a huge unbanked population in Africa that our infrastructure can include in the digital financial ecosystem,” says Agboola. “We see an explosive phase for innovative business growth here over the next decade as we build an integrated payments environment.”
True to its name, Flutterwave and its CEO aim to be the catalyst – or “butterfly” – that creates ripple effects for Pan-African commerce to take flight.
