Flutterwave Says Enterprise-Grade Payment Infrastructure is Crucial for the Growth of African Businesses

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The Head of SME Business at Flutterwave, Bolanle Baruwa, has praised the growth of Africa’s fintech ecosystem, stating that the continent’s payment infrastructure is now at par with the world’s during high-profile appearances at the NYSE Tech Summit in San Francisco and the Africa Fintech Summit in Washington, D.C. She noted that small and micro enterprises (SMEs), which dominate Africa’s economy, stand to gain the most from this development.

During the NYSE Tech Summit, Baruwa participated in a fireside chat titled: “Building Global Payment Rails for the Next Billion.” She addressed the persistent friction points for enterprises moving money internationally, such as slow settlement, FX liquidity constraints, and the complexity of navigating compliance across multiple African markets.

She highlighted Flutterwave’s role as an infrastructure layer enabling multinationals and African enterprises to navigate these challenges on a single platform in over 34 countries. She also addressed the strategic positioning of stablecoins as infrastructure, not a niche crypto tool, for markets where correspondent banking remains costly and slow.

Commenting on these developments, she said: “For a business in Lagos or Nairobi, enterprise-grade infrastructure is not a luxury; it is survival. It means not losing a day’s revenue to a settlement delay or watching a cross-border payment fail because of fragmented rails.”

At the Africa Fintech Summit (AFTS) in Washington DC, Baruwa delivered a keynote speech on behalf of Flutterwave Founder and CEO, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola. In the speech, she traced Flutterwave’s decade-long evolution from a payment gateway connecting fragmented financial systems to a financial operating system for Africa.

She emphasized that milestones like acquiring…