FLUTTERWAVE: THE REVOLUTION OF ONLINE PAYMENT IN AFRICA

FLUTTERWAVE: THE REVOLUTION OF ONLINE PAYMENT IN AFRICA
Since the dawn of time, one of the striking things that always reinvents itself is money and how it is exchanged. It started with trade by barter, moved on to cowries, ivories, tusks, bronze, silver and gold; but between the 618 – 907 AD paper money was used in China before it became widespread in Europe in the 17th century. Africa being the second largest continent by population is no stranger to this evolution of money and although we have banking systems, Automated Teller Machines (also known as ATMs), Point of Sales system (also known as POS) and other payment methods, the difficulties of making online payments persisted. This concern and making advanced payment systems available to African countries gave rise to the company FLUTTERWAVE.

Brief Overview
With the surge of internet users and online businesses, one of the problems that are bound to occur is how to make payments online. The traditional way of making payments are gradually becoming obsolete while making and receiving payment on the internet is rising daily and that led to the Fintech Flutterwave.
Flutterwave is a Fintech company that was founded in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji (the co-founder of the Andela program) in partnership with Olugbenga Agboola who is the Current CEO of this great company. The company has its headquarters in San Francisco, one in Lagos state and other countries where it is established. Since they started business it has grown to be one of the best online payment platforms in Africa and this is shown in its partnership with over 50 banks in Africa and 1200 software developers that build on the platform.

Flutterwave Products
Flutterwave is trying to make Africans build global businesses that can make or accept payments anywhere in Africa or the world; and this is why it easily stands out as one of the best online payment gateways for businesses. Over the years it has released some outstanding products to the Fintech world and they are Rave (Ravepay) and Barter (GetBarter).

This product which was founded in 2017 is one of the best online payment services for businesses as it enables them to accept a wide range of payment methods from customers all over the world. This payment method called Rave is a very secured and safe gateway that ensures your business is loaded with all the payment functionalities, speed and great user experience needed to satisfying your customers. One of the mind blowing functionality is that it allows businesses to accept the payment in their local currency and also enables over 200 million users of PayPal to make payments using Rave.

The second product called Barter was founded in 2019 to help consumers make payments easily within countries in Africa and across its borders. The GetBarter app or Barter was launched in partnership with Visa. It also makes international payments easier. The one of the differences between GetBarter and Ravepay is that the former is for personal use while the latter is for businesses. One of the astonishing things about this product is that you can send money to friends around you or request for money by using the nearby feature on the App. Another feature in the product that is very awesome is that if you have mobile wallets on other platforms or accounts, you can create a virtual Visa, Verve or Master card and link to those platforms.
Some other payments services that supports flutterwave include Paywithcapture, Paystack, AmplifyPay, Glovepay and many more.

Achievements
Flutterwave being just 3 years in the Fintech world has surely done a lot for the payment solutions in Africa. It has raised over $20 million in investments from a series of funding with participation from key investors such as Greycroft, Green Visor Capital, MasterCard, CRE ventures, Fintech collective,4DX Ventures, Raba Capital, among others. Also Former CEO of Visa and Green Visor Capital Chairman, Joseph Saunders joined Flutterwave Board of Directors as part of the funding agreement.

Some of its other achievements is seen in the money it has processed up to $2.5 billion in payments and over 100 million transactions.

Furthermore, the fintech has been accepted by top companies like Uber, Arikair, Jumia, Markethub, Booking.com, Flywire, Transferwise and Ojaexpress; it also supports some payment methods which include Visa, MasterCard, ApplePay, Verve, American Express, AndroidPay, etc.
Although it is still in its early years it has won the Best Payments Company Awards at the Ghana ecommerce awards ceremony recently, showing that it is making waves in the African continent. Some of the African Countries that flutterwave has extended its payment methods to are Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda and it is also opening up its business to the Asian continent with its partnership with the Chinese e- commerce giant company Alibaba.
The Partnership with Alibaba’s Alipay means that African merchants who use it can accept payments from Chinese customers with no stress. Also this partnership means that merchants get access to its billion users in Asia.

Conclusion
As the world keeps evolving, so does money and its payment methods but given the current trend of online payment solutions I can confidently say that flutterwave is on the forefront to be one of Africa’s greatest Payment platforms with its products rave and barter.
Also I can confidently recommend some of its products having used them and gladly say that this is one platform every merchant or business owner should have in order to solve their online payment problems.