Flutterwave: Easiest way to make and receive payment in Africa while powering ecosystem growth.
Tags: paymentsprocessing
Published: 2019-09-27 14:03:20

In 2014 three friends in university co-founded an eCommerce startup but their biggest barrier to entry was a payment aggregator but today Aisha an Instagram merchant, Obi an electronics seller in Alaba Market or Alhaja Toyin fabrics seller at Oshodi Market can receive payment from any part of the world and have it in their accounts immediately because of the amazing work of Flutterwave to democratize payment in Africa. Before the advent of players like Flutterwave into the ecosystem, this was one herculean task with even the available option costing over $500 with a card payment failure rate of over 60%.

Receiving payments is at the core of commerce. For many years African merchants were disconnected from the global economy because of their inability to easily receive payment from different parts of the world but today with the advent of Flutterwave this has become a thing of the past. Flutterwave is driving a new era of commerce by enabling African merchants everywhere from market places to social media to big corporations to receive payments easily.

Looking at the payments system of Africa today one might not be able to see the impact a company like Flutterwave has had in helping to democratize payments and give small and medium enterprises the ability to receive payment. Payment processing in Africa is very different from the United States or other developed countries. If you go to any store in the U.S., they take debit cards, credit cards, and even mobile payments. This is not the case in Africa. To provide that same full-service payment option, merchants and payment service providers have to integrate with each form of payment individually. That means you have a POS that accepts Visa and not Mastercard. Failed transactions are so common that many store owners don’t bother with the POS anymore. The banks didn’t have seamless payment technology that could bring all these solutions to their merchants. Because of this, Africa simply defaulted to cash and then alternative payments like bank accounts or mobile money. Flutterwave’s technology accepts traditional card-based payment processing but also caters to more popular payment processing methods like ACH and mobile money payments.

Rave

Rave by flutterwave, the easier way to make and accept payments from customers anywhere in the world, is a service that enables merchants to accept global payment from a card, bank accounts, and USSD. Rave currently accepts debit/credit card payments from customers in 154+ countries. Visa, Mastercard, Verve are all accepted. Merchants with customers in the US, South Africa, and Nigeria can pay directly from their bank accounts or mobile wallets (M-Cash, M-Pesa, TIGO, etc.)

Today you can easily integrate Flutterwave rave to platforms like Shopify, Quickbooks, Xero, Squarespace, Sage, Zoho, and many others, helping to power new frontiers and enable payment.

Barter

GetBarter app is a lifestyle payment solution that operates globally with an initial user base in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa. Users can initiate payments within the app and make online and mobile payments with their virtual visa card to Flutterwave merchants. Additionally, GetBarter users can carry out business transactions, pay bills and initiate payments to thousands of merchants anywhere Visa is accepted globally. Barter today has over 30,000 customers.

Recent Development

Flutterwave is now integrated with Alipay so this gives all Flutterwave merchants access to over 1 billion Alipay users. Alipay is available in addition to the card, Barter, Mobile Money and other payment channels on the Rave checkout modal.

Beyond delivering a groundbreaking payment system, Flutterwave is also at the forefront driving the Nigerian tech ecosystem as recently seen in her new drive in organizing a job fair for the recently dropped Andela junior developers, the sponsorship of the HNG6 internship helping to groom the next generation of Nigeria tech talent.

Looking startups like Flutterwave gives an air of hope that Africa is truly rising and on the right part. We must continue to support innovations that help to make life easier for other Africans.

I will end this article but quoting Fred Swaniker’s TIme 100 award speech “All of us who are privileged enough to be healthy, to be alive, to have education and to have influence, our role is not to do small things and to solve small problems,” Swaniker said. “The only way that we can justify privilege is by solving the world’s biggest problems, and by doing hard things.”