Flutterwave secures Nigerian banking licence, signals growth from payments firm to full bank

Flutterwave has obtained a Nigerian banking licence, marking a major shift in its evolution from a payments-focused platform to a full financial services provider.

Founder and CEO Olugbenga Agboola announced the development in a post on X today, stating that the licence allows Flutterwave to step “into the core of the system” rather than building on top of existing infrastructure.

With the new licence, Flutterwave will now be able to offer services such as business accounts, payments, payroll management, lending, and multi-currency transactions on a unified platform. The company is positioning itself to compete directly with traditional banks while leveraging its technology infrastructure built over a decade of operations.

“With this banking licence in Nigeria, we are stepping into the core of the system,” Agboola wrote. “From enabling transactions to managing them end-to-end. From relying on external infrastructure to building with control over how money moves, settles, and is accessed.”

From payment rails to a full banking platform

The licence represents a significant expansion for Flutterwave, which has built its reputation processing payments for businesses across Africa. The company has processed more than 1 billion transactions and moved over $40 billion in value, supporting more than 2 million businesses across a network connecting Africa to the world.

However, operating as a payments company rather than a bank created boundaries around settlement speed, product design, and infrastructure control. The banking licence removes those constraints.

Also read: Flutterwave partner Kulipa secures $6.2 million to bring Stablecoin-funded payment cards to Nigeria

For everyday users, Flutterwave’s SendApp, which already has over 1 million users, will evolve into a full consumer banking platform. Users will be able to send and receive money instantly, get an account number, pay businesses seamlessly, use Tap to Pay when it launches, and manage wallets and balances in one place.

For the 2 million businesses already using Flutterwave to accept payments, the platform will now offer complete financial operations management. Businesses in Nigeria can open business accounts, accept payments locally and globally, manage payouts and vendor payments, run payroll and mass disbursements, and access multi-currency capabilities.

Building beyond payments

Flutterwave is also introducing financial products powered by transaction data, including working capital loans, merchant financing, and short-term credit. The company stated that these products will not involve paper applications or unclear procedures. Instead, they will use up-to-date transaction information.

For large organisations, the company will deliver enterprise solutions built for scale, including large-scale payment collections, automated payouts across teams and vendors, treasury and liquidity management, and API integrations for direct system connectivity.

Developers will be able to interact directly with Flutterwave’s infrastructure via APIs to create bank accounts for customers at scale, issue virtual accounts, move money programmatically, and build new financial products on the same platform that powers millions of daily transactions.

The development follows Flutterwave’s recent acquisition of Mono, an open banking platform, and builds on strategic investments in governance, compliance, and monitoring systems. The company is already PCI DSS Level 1 certified and SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliant.

Agboola positioned the banking licence as “the beginning of a new phase” for Flutterwave, stating that the company spent the last decade transforming how payments work across Africa and is now focused on how banking itself evolves.

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