For a country with one of the largest economies and internet penetrations in Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria has been conspicuously absent on the network of the world’s frontline payment processor, PayPal. Understandably, PayPal has its fears about doing business with a country that has been stereotyped as fraudulent by the minority involved in online scams and economic/financial crimes. Thankfully, with Flutterwave’s partnership with PayPal, PayPal users globally can now pay African merchants through its ‘Pay with PayPal’ feature.
In a Twitter post, Flutterwave’s CEO, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola said the collaboration will allow businesses in Africa receive payments from over 377 million PayPal users all over the world.
The partnership reinforces the Nigerian company’s vision of “creating a seamless digital payments system for Africa’s business communities that can now transact with international consumers,” Agboola added.
On how PayPal users can pay a Flutterwave merchant, the company says they simply have to look out for the “Pay with PayPal” option on a Flutterwave merchant’s checkout page. Then, click the “Pay with PayPal” button, and follow the prompt as it redirects you to your PayPal account to complete your payment as usual. They are automatically redirected to the merchant’s checkout page as payment is confirmed on the modal.
While this is its biggest partnership since launching in 2019, Flutterwave has collaborated with Visa to launch Barter; Alipay to offer digital payments between Africa and China; and Worldpay FIS for payments in Africa.
Last week, the African payments platform announced that it had secured USD $170 million in the Series C round led by growth-equity firms Avenir Growth Capital (“Avenir”) and Tiger Global Management LLC (“Tiger Global”) with participation from other international investors. The company says the fundraise will allow it to become a leading global payments company capable of empowering SMEs and multinational brands by connecting the highly fragmented African digital payments landscape.
In 2020, the company introduced the Flutterwave Stores for merchants during pandemic-induced lockdowns. The product, which went live across 15 African countries, helps over 20,000 merchants to create storefronts and sell their products online.
With the PayPal collaboration, not only will businesses and freelancers in Africa be able to meet up to international demand, people in the diaspora will find it easy to make payments to African merchants directly.
