Africa’s digital economy is worth more than $180 billion, yet moving money across the continent remains one of its biggest friction points. Payments across the continent is fragmented as each country has its own currencies, licensing requirements, mobile money systems, and regulators.

Flutterwave’s playbook on cross-border payments, presented at Moonshot by Flutterwave’s Assistant Vice President, Global Expansion & Payments Partnership, Gabriel Ologunwa, explored how this fragmentation creates both challenges and opportunities. 

The company pointed to a $1 trillion untapped market for electronic payments and $96.4 billion in annual remittances as proof of the scale waiting to be unlocked only if payment systems within the continent could align and work together.

This presents a challenge for fintechs who intend to expand across the continent. To navigate Africa’s diverse payment rails, these startups must integrate separately with banks, and card networks in each market, manage volatile foreign exchange rates and meet different licensing standards. Flutterwave’s model collapses these barriers through a unified application programming interface (API) that connects businesses to local payment infrastructure across Africa.

The company now holds regulatory coverage in 34 African countries and licenses in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and India, allowing it to operate seamlessly across jurisdictions. These licenses include Nigeria’s Switching & Processing License, South Africa’s Third-Party Payment Processor License, Egypt’s Payment Service Provider, the Payment System License in Tanzania and Zambia, among others.

Its impact shows up in how global brands now scale in Africa.

European fintech Norafirst used Flutterwave’s API to access 20+ markets, growing transactions by 300% in six months. Buy now, pay later firm, FuturePay, integrated local payment options and saw cart completion rise 60%. 

In the first half of 2025 alone, Flutterwave processed $1 billion for East Asian merchants and grew its virtual accounts volume by 198% year-on-year. Launched in 2016 as a Nigerian and US-based payments company, Flutterwave was valued at $3 billion and had processed over 200 million transactions as at 2022.