The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has awarded Flutterwave, the top payments technology firm in Africa, with a Switching and Processing License, widely considered as the most important payments processing licence held by the CBN. With the use of this licence, Flutterwave is able to provide clients with transaction switching and card processing services. Non-bank acquiring, agency banking, and payment gateway services are a few more. With this, Flutterwave successfully joins the list of licence holders that includes Interswitch, TeamApt, eTranzact, Unified Payments, Appzone, and Interswitch (the Visa-backed business considered as Nigeria’s pioneer in payments switching).

“This is big news for our customers, partners, investors, and other stakeholders. It is an important milestone in our growth story. Building a thriving payments ecosystem in Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is in line with our goal of developing a world class and secure payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent,” CEO and Founder, Olugbenga GB Agboola said. 

Here’s What You Need To Know

• Flutterwave’s Switching and Processing licence enables transactions between banks, fintechs, and other financial institutions. The Company may also handle card transactions, participate in agency banking, and provide a variety of payment services without the use of an intermediary.

• Flutterwave previously operated under the Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) and International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) licences.

“We’re thrilled to have been issued this license after fulfilling all of the regulatory requirements. The application process was very rigorous and included a detailed review of our operations as a business. As a switch, we have more responsibilities and will continue to work with Regulators to ensure we meet and exceed their expectations,” Flutterwave’s Chief Regulatory and Government Affairs Officer, Oluwabankole Falade said. 

“The license will allow us to offer more services and explore more payment use cases for our ecosystem. With this license, we can offer more value to our customers while taking more control of our value chain to enable an improved payments experience for our enterprise, medium scale and retail customers,” Reacting to the news, Onyedikachim Nwankwo, Head of Product Marketing said. 

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. 
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexpert