Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments technology company, plans to establish its settlement hub for regional payment operations in Rwanda, according to the company’s CEO. Olugbenga Agboola, announced this during the recently concluded Inclusive Fintech Forum, that attracted more than 2,500 delegates as part of the efforts to discuss the opportunities and requirements for driving the digital economy in Africa. ALSO READ: What should Africa’s Fintech ecosystem do better? Rwanda, through the Kigali International Financial Centre, has been making strides in establishing itself as a premier destination for foreign investment funds management into Africa. Attracting more and more investments with the ease of regulations adopted. “We’ve got plans to have a financial operations centre set up in Rwanda, where all our settlement across the region goes from here. Everyone has supported us to make that happen. So it makes sense to put something in this market and scale it from here,” Agboola said. Flutterwave has been operating in Rwanda since 2020, being the second African country to give it the payment service provider license in 2019, after Nigeria. However, its presence in the market is yet to be felt. ALSO READ: How the ease of licensing process could boost Fintechs penetration in Africa In March 2023, the National Bank of Rwanda also granted Flutterwave with new Electronic Money Issuer and Remittance licenses, which lays ground for establishing a settlement hub in the country. The Electronic Money Issuer license allows it to acquire all types of payment instruments in Rwanda while the company’s new remittance solution enables Send by Flutterwave to process inbound and outbound cross-border transfers in the country. Flutterwave is present in more than 30 African countries. Rwanda has, over the past few years, been laying solid foundation for the growth of Fintech companies in terms of frameworks and regulations to put in place a conducive environment in the grand picture of digital transformation. Among a number of approaches made is the sandbox regulatory framework where startup companies are able to test their projects for a period of 12 months without going through the “lengthy” process of licensing. ALSO READ: Rwandan tech start-ups raised over $4m in financing in 2020 This has enabled the rise of fintech startups from different countries to test their solutions in Rwanda with the facilitation of the Norrsken East Africa hub that hosts more than 1,000 startups from across Africa. According to Olivier Mugabonake, the Chairperson of Rwanda Fintech Network, there are between 40 and 70 fintech companies established in the country.
