Flutterwave, Africa's $31B Payment Provider, Taps Polygon for Cross-Border Payments

Flutterwave, one of the largest payments firm in Africa, has tapped Polygon Labs to make cross-border payments faster and cheaper with blockchain rails, the firms said on Thursday.

The tie-up will embed the Polygon (POL) network as the default plumbing under Flutterwave’s new, stablecoin-based payment system, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk.

The first phase of the rollout, starting later this year, focuses on multinational business clients including Uber and Audiomack. A broader release is planned for next year, extending the service to Flutterwave's Send App for retail remittances.

Today, cross-border payments in many African nations are slow and costly, with fees averaging over 8%, the firms said. A business waiting days for funds to clear can lose access to working capital or miss growth opportunities.

Stablecoins, a group of cryptocurrencies tied to fiat money like the U.S. dollar, aim to offer a cheaper, faster alternative to traditional payment rails by routing transactions onchain, bypassing banks. Stablecoins have grown to a $300 billion asset class and are increasingly popular in emerging countries for everyday payments and savings.

"Businesses in emerging economies process billions in cross-border payments annually, yet still face high costs and slow settlement times," Olugbenga Agboola, founder and CEO of Flutterwave, said in a statement. "By partnering with Polygon, we're introducing a solution that makes international payments even more simple and affordable than many local ones."

With this move, Flutterwave joins a growing list of financial players betting on stablecoins on blockchain rails to solve longstanding payment bottlenecks. For example, Western Union, an ubiquitous global money transfer network, just announced it would roll out its own stablecoin on the Solana SOL$80.86 blockchain with U.S. crypto bank Anchorage Digital next year. PayPal (PYPL) launched its PYUSD stablecoin with Paxos in 2023, while Stripe is building its own blockchain and stablecoin infrastructure.