The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has granted Flutterwave a Switching and Processing License, to enable it to provide payment services to its customers and boost financial inclusion.
In a statement, Chief Regulatory and Government Affairs Officer, Flutterwave, Oluwabankole Falade, said: “We are thrilled to have been issued this license after fulfilling all of the regulatory requirements.
“The application process was rigorous and included a detailed review of our operations as a business. As a switch, we have more responsibilities and will continue to work with regulators to ensure we meet and exceed their expectations.”
With the license, Flutterwave, aside from switching and card processing services to customers will also offer other transactions, including non-bank acquiring, agency banking and payment gateway services.
The license also allows the Fintech company to enable transactions between banks, fintechs and other financial institutions as well as offer various payment services without any intermediary.
Hitherto, Flutterwave operated with its Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) and International Money Transfer Operator (IMTO) licenses.
With this license, we can offer more value to our customers while taking more control of our value chain to enable an improved payments experience for our enterprise, medium scale and retail customers.
Commenting, Head of Product Marketing, Onyedikachim Nwankwo, said: “the license will allow us to offer more services and explore more payment use cases for our ecosystem. With this license, we can offer more value to our customers while taking more control of our value chain to enable an improved payments experience for our enterprise, medium scale and retail customers.”
The Switching and Processing license is issued to Fintech companies to process transactions between vendors, merchants, their customers and other financial institutions.
To be eligible for the license, registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission with Articles and Memorandum of Association is mandatory.
There is a minimum capital requirement of N2 billion Shareholders’ Fund unimpaired by losses, preceding 3-years audited financial statements of the company (If applicable), and an escrow of refundable N2 billion deposited into CBN PSP Share Capital Deposit Account Number – 1000014009. The escrow must be paid as a lump sum.
Additionally, a non-refundable fee of N100,000 is paid to the CBN as application fees, and if successful, another N1 million is to be paid before the issuance of a final license. However, the validity of the license is determined by the CBN upon satisfactory performance of operations.
