FinTech news in flutterwave category
A day after Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), Kenya monetary authority, said that Chipper Cash and Flutterwave were not licensed to operate in the East African country, the regulator has directed all financial institutions to cease doing business with the two fintechs. The CBK’s bank supervision deputy director, Matu Mugo, in a letter, directed all regulated banks, microfinance and mortgage finance institutions to stop their partnerships with the two startups with immediate effect — dealing a blow to Flutterwave and Chipper Cash, some of Africa’s highest valued startups. Flutterwave, which is also facing money laundering allegations in Kenya, in a statement said it has been operating in the country through partnerships with regulated banks and telecoms, as it waits for a payments service provider license it applied for in 2019. The letter to the bank CEOs followed remarks by CBK’s governor, Patrick Njoroge, that the two startups are not licensed remittance or payment service providers in Kenya — one of the biggest fintech hubs in Africa.
Elivalat Fintech Ltd., Hupesi Solutions, Cruz Ride Auto Ltd and its director Simon Karanja Ngige, Boxtrip Travels and Tours, Bagtrip Travels Ltd. accounts, and Adguru are the entities said to have received the funds from Flutterwave, and whose accounts were also frozen.
While they provide digital wallets to help facilitate money transfers, there’s a lack of mobile wallet interoperability outside their ecosystem; in essence, moving money from one fintech wallet to another fintech or non-fintech wallet (in the case of an embedded finance play) is hard.
Dapio’s launch is a sign of where the U.K. payments scene is currently — where contactless payments aided by NFC technology have exploded, making up a quarter of all payments in the country.
The round of funding is good news for both employees and early backers who took a bet on Wasoko years ago as new investors Tiger Global and Avenir Growth Capital lead its Series B round (the pair also co-led Flutterwave’s Series C investment last March).
At $3 billion, Flutterwave is currently the highest valued African startup, surpassing the $2 billion valuation set by SoftBank-backed fintech OPay and FTX-backed cross-border payments platform Chipper Cash last year.
Some tech insiders don’t view companies such as Zepz, Zipline or Tala as African companies — some see them as international companies headquartered in the U.S. or the U.K. with Africa as one of their markets, unlike other companies that are headquartered in Africa or both Africa and the U.S. The Big Deal tracks funding rounds from $100,000 and above from startups operating in Africa with their headquarters on the continent or HQ outside Africa but with founders from Africa. Fintechs in Africa continue to overshadow all other startups in funding gained Nigeria and South Africa are in the top two; Egypt and Kenya switch Briter doesn’t say, but it reveals more frightening stats that go almost a decade back: 3.2% of African VC total funding and 8.2% of deals have gone to all-female co-founded teams since it started keeping track in 2013.