Report: African FinTech Flutterwave Planning an IPO

Nigerian payments company Flutterwave is reportedly planning to go public.

In an interview with Bloomberg News published Tuesday (Aug. 22), the company’s chief executive said it is moving forward with a planned initial public offering (IPO).

Olugbenga Agboola, also one of the co-founders of Flutterwave, told Bloomberg the company had made progress in resolving financial impropriety claims in Kenya so it could find new and bigger global partners.

The interview with Bloomberg came nearly a year after another company official — Chief Financial Officer Oneal Bhambani — told the news outlet Flutterwave was preparing for an IPO despite the troubles in Kenya.

As noted here at the time, a Kenyan court had frozen Flutterwave’s accounts over allegations of anti-money laundering rule violations. The company had denied any wrongdoing.

According to the Tuesday Bloomberg report, Agboola also downplayed claims that his company had refused to honor former employees’ stock rights, and that workers were harassed and bullied, saying these were “very, very isolated,” cases and they wouldn’t impact the IPO.

In a statement to PYMNTS, Flutterwave said the case to unfreeze its accounts had been twice postponed and that it looked forward to the matter being resolved, but could not comment on specifics while the case was before the court.

“However, we would like to emphasize the company has always been and will continue to conduct itself in strict compliance with the law,” the company said. “Our commitment to ethical practices and adherence to regulatory requirements is unwavering and we are actively cooperating with all the relevant authorities to ensure an expeditious resolution.”

Flutterwave, which operates in more than 30 African countries, has gotten approvals that put it on the road to doing business in Kenya, a crucial African market, Agboola added.

The company also won licenses from Rwanda’s central bank earlier this year, allowing it to expand its operations in that country, PYMNTS reported.

“There’s some kind of customers we’ll attract when we are public,” he said in the interview. “The large global clients who need you to have the same level of compliance and level of global view that they have.”

The news follows Flutterwave’s announcement earlier this month that it had extended its remittance solution Send App to Canada and the U.S., allowing for money transfers from those countries to customers in Africa.

“The Send App is a user-friendly remittance solution built on our cross-border experience and global payment infrastructure reach that empowers diaspora Africans to make money transfers to the African continent quickly and easily,” Agboola said at the time.

Flutterwave noted that remittances to Africa were $100 billion in 2022, with funds going to 200 million people.

This year has also seen the company launch Tuition, a product that lets African users pay fees to educational institutions both within Africa and overseas by using local currencies, and form a partnership with Token.io to offer pay-by-bank capabilities.