For Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, building a fintech to transform digital payments across Africa has always been about removing barriers and fueling the continent’s entrepreneurial spirit.
“There are so many problems to solve on the continent, so many things to build,” Agboola says. “I’m excited by entrepreneurs willing to take on these challenges and solve them innovatively across different sectors.”
Coming from roles at major companies like PayPal, Google, and international banks, the CEO had a unique vantage point on the systemic complexities holding back faster business growth, financial inclusion, and economic progress in Africa.
Chief among those obstacles was a need for integrated payment infrastructure. Agboola witnessed firsthand how different payment methods between countries created significant operational friction and delays just for basic cross-border money transfers.
“Bank transfers are prevalent in Nigeria but not as much in South Africa. Mobile money is huge in East Africa but not West Africa,” he explains. “Without a unified way to connect all these different payment types, you’d have issues.”
Those inefficient, fragmented systems meant companies often waited days or weeks to access funds and pay employees in another country. Cumbersome money movement processes hobbled businesses trying to expand across the continent.
“It was getting in the way of economic growth, job creation, and bringing more goods and services to people,” Agboola states. “We needed to build new payment rails to unlock that entrepreneurial drive across Africa.”
In 2016, he co-founded Flutterwave to create an integrated platform to bridge all the different payment methods into a seamless ecosystem for transferring money quickly and cheaply. A core part of the strategy was first understanding and plugging into each country’s distinct financial environment through partnerships with local banks and mobile carriers.
“We aim to give people what payment method they’re comfortable with in their market, whether it’s mobile money, bank transfers, or something else,” says the CEO. “But our infrastructure links all those local payment types into one interoperable system for real-time settlements across borders.”
By meeting consumers where they already transact while unifying transaction pipes behind the scenes, Flutterwave has rapidly built trust and adoption and scaled its platform across the continent. The fintech now powers payments for businesses of all sizes, individuals, and crowdfunding platforms that provide microloans to underserved groups.
“We may not directly reduce poverty, but we enable businesses that create economic empowerment through our payment solutions,” Agboola explains.
Leading that expansion from the beginning has required deftly navigating relationships with regulators and policymakers across Africa’s 54 nations, each with distinct rules around digital payments.
“We approach every country’s regulations very carefully, being intentional about listening to financial authorities in each market,” the CEO says. “They understandably have different policies, but our goal is building an infrastructure solution that complies with and connects all those frameworks.”
Now valued at over $3 billion, Flutterwave continues rapidly rolling out new products, services, and partnerships laser-focused on tailoring payment solutions for African businesses, entrepreneurs, and consumers. The fintech is constantly evolving as it aims to build a comprehensive digital financial backbone for the continent’s innovators.
“A lot of the unicorns you see in Africa are solving real problems that are removing fundamental roadblocks to creating value at scale,” Agboola states. “From lending to e-commerce, our infrastructure helps enable entrepreneurial energy driving so much of Africa’s future economic potential.”
Under the CEO’s vision, Flutterwave is constructing unified payment rails to empower a new generation of pan-African companies and individual entrepreneurs to participate in the global digital economy truly. Its solutions are the bridge for that transformative journey.
