Flutterwave; A savior to online payment
Despite all the entrepreneurial spirit and expertise in Nigeria, Online payments didn’t work, Interswitch’s WebPay was the default payment processor and startups had to pay N150,000 (about $1,000 at the time) to acquire it. Even though mobile internet was the fastest-growing way to access the web, WebPay didn’t work on mobile phones. And then, there were the failure rates — some startups reported that as many as 90% of online transactions failed.
Further more, online transaction had to be “tokenised” — confirmed by a one-time password. This meant recurring payments were impossible to execute. As a result, the only way to execute online subscription services was using premium SMS. This was restricted by another regulation, this time from the National Communications Commission capping transaction size at N200 (roughly $1). Telcos and their service provider partners used to charge a service fee that ranged from 60% to 80%.
Online payment also had challenges with Financial Inclusion, Government policies/regulations, Infrastructure development, securities, delay, low literacy levels and merchant acceptance.
This problems are prohibitive to the future growth of the continent.
Here comes Flutterwave.
Focused on helping anyone send and receive money by any means they want via an API.
Flutterwave takes care of those problems by integrating banks and payment-service providers into its platform so businesses don’t have to take on the expense and burden. It also makes it easier for banks and businesses to process payments across Africa. The service allows consumers to pay for things in their local currency.
Flutterwave aggregates payment services from over 68 gateways including mobile money, cards, wallets, and bank accounts, from anywhere in Africa and around the world, all from one integrated platform.
It Protects businesses by processing payments on certified infrastructure, protected with chargeback insurance, and guaranteed to land in the right account by the next day. The service is currently active and can receive and send money in over 30 African countries.
Backed with its Customer Policy “Payments is People, and People matter” their response to a user that complained about their services on twitter posted on January 25, shows they put customer’s satisfaction first.
I guarantee you will have a Stress-less experience with Flutterwave.
