Flutterwave has secured a microfinance banking licence in Nigeria, a move that lets the payments company hold customer funds and deposits directly for the first time rather than simply routing money between banks and merchants.
The licence covers both sides of Flutterwave’s consumer and business operations, banking services will run through its Send App for individual users and through Flutterwave for Business for merchants and companies. Until now, the company processed transactions without retaining the funds that passed through its platform. Chief executive Olugbenga Agboola said Flutterwave has processed about $40 billion in payments on that basis, working with clients that include Uber, Microsoft and Netflix.
The banking licence follows Flutterwave’s acquisition of open-banking company Mono in January 2026, a deal that gave it access to financial data, identity verification and account-to-account payment infrastructure. Taken together, the two moves point toward lending, since deeper visibility into a customer’s banking activity is usually a prerequisite for extending credit at scale.
