Dive Brief:
- Fintech Flutterwave launched its cross-border payment app in the U.S. and Canada on Tuesday, according to a press release.
- The app, recently renamed from $end Mobile to Send App, allows users to send money to and from some 34 countries, according to the release. A new addition to the receiving countries list is Egypt, which is one of the top five remittance recipients globally, according to the United Nations.
- Remittance payments to Africa have doubled in the past decade, reaching $100 billion in 2022. The U.N. estimates that over 200 million Africans — 14% of the continent's population — receive such payments.
Dive Insight:
The company, which was founded in 2016, is headquartered in San Francisco, but runs its operations out of Lagos, Nigeria, according to the news outlet Forbes. It is one of the world’s fastest-growing payment companies, according to Business Insider Africa. As of March of this year, it had processed 100 million payments totaling nearly $20 billion across some 33 African countries.
Flutterwave is building out its international business this summer, according to global tech news outlet Rest of World. Starting in June, the Africa-focused fintech has rolled out partnerships aimed at connecting its customers to the United Kingdom, Europe, United States and Canada.
Flutterwave’s Summer of International Growth
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June 6
Flutterwave partners with Token.io, an account-to-account payment infrastructure company, to give African merchants access to customers in the U.K. and E.U.
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June 15
Flutterwave responds to reports that a Kenyan High Court has frozen company accounts, according to business news outlet, The Kenyan Wall Street.
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June 21
Flutterwave partners with Audiomack, an international music streaming platform according to Nigerian newspaper Guardian Nigeria.
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June 22
Flutterwave enters a five-year agreement to use tech giant Microsoft’s cloud platform, according to Business Insider.
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August 1
Flutterwave launches its Send App in the U.S. and Canada
"No matter where we find ourselves as Africans, we remain tied to our homes and always seek measures to support, appreciate and stay connected with our loved ones," Flutterwave founder and CEO Olugbenga Agboola said in the press release.
The company’s expansion follows scandals for the payments company, according to Rest of World. Since April of last year, Flutterwave has been rocked by allegations of wide-ranging issues, including administrative errors, mismanagement, security breaches and sexual harassment.
And the problems aren’t over. According to Rest of World, about 2,000 investors filed a petition alleging Flutterwave and an online sports-gambling company, 86 Football Technology, bilked them of $12.04 million. Flutterwave denied the allegations, but a Kenyan High Court temporarily froze 45 bank accounts and 10 Kenyan mobile money wallets belonging to the company.
Despite its ongoing challenges, the company may be too big to fail. “Flutterwave has cornered a valuable position in the marketplace,” Emeka Ajene, founder of investment firm Afri.capital, told Rest of World. “The company and its leadership have made a number of errors, to be sure. However, the company still creates a lot of value for its existing partners [like Uber and Netflix], and the payments and fintech ecosystem at large.”
