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So what is clear to any keen observer is that FinTech companies in Nigeria are that they are on a roll and they will be for a fairly long time.
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Fintechs have been the yardstick for measuring growth in tech all over Africa as the need they provide solutions for are immediate and as such quickly scalable. Only last week, we put forward that Flutterwave secured $170 million in Series C funding. Like clockwork, Flutterwave has now announced what I believe to be the best news this new decade; Flutterwave will now partner with payment behemoth PayPal to offer businesses the option of receiving payment through PayPal. The new feature on its platform allows users to enable PayPal as an option for receiving money in its “Account Settings” tab. But “what does this mean for everybody?” may be the question on your mind as you may not understand what all the hype is about. Well, here are some of the implications and projections that would result from this new feature. PayPal is by far the largest payment service anywhere in the world with over 377 million users. The PayPal platform has gone from being an outlier to being the mainstream in payment systems across the world in two decades. In the past decade, PayPal has opened up to the African market but for most countries, customers can only enjoy restricted use. In Nigeria, for instance, users can send money but cannot receive it even though Nigeria is its second-largest customer base.
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Flutterwave’s partnership with PayPal puts it in a position to become part of the world mainstream as merchants and businesses can now earn foreign currency directly where it was impossible before. The reason for PayPal restricted use in Africa has been suggested in some quarters to be down to fraudulent activities. Flutterwave’s partnership with PayPal will allow PayPal to test out the market more than before. In almost every other market PayPal is prominent in, they have invested headlong. With Africa, the company seems wary of how unstructured the market is. Flutterwave will, thus, allow the payment giant to understand the market more with a view to further penetrate. Like most companies in its ilk in the west, they have attained saturation and are on the lookout for opportunities in the emerging economies of the world. Flutterwave has made a habit of using partnerships to connect its users. It has a partnership with Alipay to connect African merchants with their partners in China. It works with Visa to float its flagship product for merchants, Barter by Flutterwave. Flutterwave, it seems, is taking a calculated risk on behalf of all the companies it is partnering with. It knows the African market and is almost sure of the potentials. The African market is expected to top $29 billion by next year. This is best perceived as a play to capture a bigger share of that booty by actively fostering that growth by itself. Flutterwave is already in a partnership with Worldpay FIS to enable seamless payments across African borders and buy opening its users up to the world, Flutterwave is set to grow further and faster in the near future. Techcrunch puts it best in stating:
“Flutterwave absorbs most of the risk PayPal thinks it will incur if it makes its platform more open to merchants in these countries. But at the same time, it solidifies Flutterwave’s position in the eyes of multinationals looking to enter the African market.”
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This article was first published on 17th March 2021

david-okwara

Some call me David. Others, Emerie. Others, (unfortunate fellows) Biggie. I like to think that I have sense and that is why I write too. Otherwise, I draw and paint and sing (in the bathroom) and love to make people laugh. I love to understand how things work and that’s why I love DIY videos and YouTube of course. Follow me on Twitter @EmerieOkwara

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