Flutterwave in works on Moneywave project to unify disparaged African payments landscape

Moneywave, via its payments platform, allows individuals and SMEs take part in the digital economy by letting them accept various payment methods and receive money instantly, techcrunch.com reports. Moneywave CEO Iyinoluwa Aboyeji comments: “The ecosystem for payments in Africa is heavily fragmented,” the source cites.

Bank accounts, while common, are often empty, and merchants are frequently informal and not actual incorporated businesses, limiting the services banks will provide. As a consequence, card transactions make up less than one percent of the billion dollars or so changing hands digitally every day.

Cash is common, and more than a few person-to-person payment systems, like the popular mPesa in Kenya, have arisen to fill the gap, but fluidity is still a problem. Transactions can take days, and fees are common when transferring or withdrawing money. And there’s no guarantee that a merchant will be compatible with the service or bank in question, mPesa is barely used in Nigeria.

Moneywave is an API layer that can be integrated into business platforms to make payments acceptace of various payment methods that consumers want to use for purchased items. In this way, businesses need not have official business bank account in order to take Visa cards — meaning online and international transactions open up, which it hardly needs saying opens up enormous opportunities. Locally, a merchant in Nigeria doesn’t have to maintain an mPesa balance from visiting Kenyans, and visiting Kenyans don’t have to convert their mPesa balances to cash just to buy something in Nigeria.

Flutterwave is backed by various VCs like Omidyar Network, Social Capital, Greycroft, Khosla, Green Visor and more.