Flutterwave, the Nigerian fintech firm has announced that it has been granted a Switching and Processing License by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the highest licence given to fintech companies in the country.
Only top-tier players in the tech ecosystem like Interswitch, eTranzact, 3Line, Unified Payments (UPSL), Cards Technology Limited (CTL) and a few others currently possess the licence.
This means that Flutterwave, which has before now depended on its Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) and International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) licenses for its operations in Nigeria, can now carry out more functions including card processing services, non-bank acquiring, agency banking, and payment gateway services without a third party.
CEO and Co-founder, Olugbenga 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, is in line with our goal of developing a world-class and secure payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent.
Chief Regulatory and Government Affairs Officer, Oluwabankole Falade said, we’re thrilled to have been issued this license after fulfilling all of the regulatory requirements. The application process was very rigorous and included a detailed review of our operations as a business. As a switch, we have more responsibilities and will continue to work with Regulators to ensure we meet and exceed their expectations.
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.
