Becoming Africa’s newest unicorn probably calls for more responsibilities which evidently captures the expansionary drive of the payments processing company Flutterwave into North African territory. Flutterwave which recently raised $170m in new funding will according to company sources achieve its objectives. To this end, the company will extend its payments network to Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia by the middle of the second quarter.
Aside from the North African countries, Flutterwave also plans to expand into francophone Africa as “our network needs to be everywhere” on the continent. With the new funding, Flutterwave aims to make it easier for Africans to build global businesses that can make and accept payments worldwide. Flutterwave will also use the money, raised from investors to accelerate customer acquisition and develop new products.
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The need to venture into North Africa is informed by the fact that digital payments market in North Africa and the Middle East is set to grow at a compound annual rate of 13.3% until 2026, driven by mobile phone and Internet penetration, which is crucial for the region to have an underlying real-time infrastructure in place to enable these payments.
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Among new products is the Flutterwave Mobile service, which allows small merchants to convert a mobile phone into a point of sale and this service goes live this month in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Rwanda.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry