Flutterwave secures Nigeria’s highest payments processing license

  • The switching license is the highest awarded to any fintech by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
  • The Switching and Processing license allows Flutterwave to enable transactions between banks, fintechs and other financial institutions.

Flutterwave, Nigeria’s most valuable fintech startup, has secured a Switching and Processing License by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)— widely regarded as CBN’s most valuable payments processing license. This license allows Flutterwave to offer customers transaction switching and card processing services. Others include non-bank acquiring, agency banking and payment gateway services.

The company can also process card transactions, participate in agency banking and offer various payment services without intermediaries. Prior to this license, Flutterwave operated with its Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) and International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) licenses.

Commenting, CEO and Founder, Olugbenga GB Agboola said, “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, aligns with our goal of developing a world-class and secure payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent.

Reacting to the news, Onyedikachim Nwankwo, Head of Product Marketing, 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.