Changing the way to do business in Africa: Interview with Elizaphan Mouko, East Africa Business Head, Flutterwave

By Gaia Lamperti

Unicorn African payments company Flutterwave wants to change the conversation in the continent unlocking a new world of endless possibilities to do business through their rails.

Launched in 2016 as a Nigerian and US-based firm, the company helps businesses build customisable payments applications through its APIs and supports companies outside Africa to expand their operations on the continent. Flutterwave’s client base boasts the likes of Booking.com, Flywire and Uber.

At the end of an exciting year for the company, filled with product launches, new partnerships, international expansion and stellar funding rounds, IBS Intelligence met Elizaphan Mouko, Country Director and East Africa Business Head at Flutterwave, to discuss the company’s journey so far and goals for the year ahead.

In 2020 alone, about $40 billion was remitted across formal channels to various countries in the Sub Saharan region, with Nigeria taking a significant share of total remittances. In this context, what’s the importance of opening new channels and platforms to facilitate these transactions?

Payments are still fragmented across Africa, with different payment options coming up like mushrooms everywhere. So, Flutterwave set out to build one API that can enable businesses to pay each other across Africa, it’s like building one rail from North to South, East to West. Thanks to a series of partnerships, we have made it easy for customers, for example, in London, to be able to send money to Kenya in real-time using the rails that we’ve built.

In 2020 we saw a lot of money coming to Africa, especially in Nigeria, which is the largest market by population in Africa, and so many solutions have been built, making it easier for people to send money across the country and from abroad. Especially as the majority of Africans who live abroad send money to their families back home. We, as the tech industry, have to find ways of ensuring that this money comes home cheaper, easily and without too much hassle. We also have the responsibility to make sure that all the compliance has been done.

On this note, the company has recently launched a new product, Send. What was the need for this product? How is it catering to the whole continent?

As a company, we build partnerships across markets, thanks to that now the majority of the companies that send money to Africa are using our rails. We felt there was a need for our own product which is an infrastructure that connects Africa payments and unlocks a new world of endless possibilities for businesses. Our mission with Send is to build rails that can connect everyone in the ecosystem, including developers who are now able to easily implement money transfer solutions for their clients or even build their own money transfer solutions powered by Send.

I remember that when my dad wanted to send money to our family outside Africa, he had to take a leave day from work, go find a branch and then ask the bank to do that transfer for him. He was also charged up to 6-7%, on top of the exchange rate. But with Send, we’ve removed those barriers. Today, you can just send money from your phone or laptop via send.flutterwave.com. We cover more than 100 currencies, and all of this has been made possible because of the partnerships we have built across the market.

For the launch of Send, Flutterwave selected the artist Wizkid as a brand ambassador, why did you choose him to bring forward the messaging around this new product? 

Wizkid is the person we chose to partner with because if you look at his journey and career path, you’ll see that he is working hard to promote his excellence to the world and the same story goes back to who we are as a company. We are an African company that is changing conversations from Africa to the world. We build these rails to enable big Silicon Valley companies like Uber, Microsoft, Netflix to do businesses with African companies. Wizkid has brought his music from Africa to the world, and we want to do the same because we are building the now and the future of the continent. We are in the process of changing conversations and the way people are doing business.

Could you share a success story of how your platform has helped a local SME to step up its business? 

I remember a woman selling shoes on the streets during Covid. She’s a single mother and needed money to feed her kids. We came up with a solution calledFlutterwave Store, a platform that makes sure that small businesses like the one of that lady can have their own Amazon-like store so that she would be able to sell the shoes there. Customers can pay online seamlessly using M-Pesa, card, PayPal or whatever method they prefer.

After she tried the product, she called me a week later and she was finally able to buy enough food for her kids. That’s when I truly felt the impact of what we do. People who have been privileged do not think how small things like these can change somebody’s life. This story touched my heart, and this is the reason why we exist, to cater for those ladies out there, SMBs, multinationals, individuals who want to send money back home seamlessly and hustlers who want to do business.

Elizaphan, you mentioned a few times how Flutterwave has been able to build its infrastructure thanks to a series of partnerships across the continent. What are the benefits you’ve measured from this approach and what does the roadmap for 2022 look like?

We have always believed that we cannot go alone in this market, we need partners to be able to meet the goals and objectives of the company. So, to partner with MTN, Ecobank, Standard Group, Visa or Mastercard across Africa means that we can bring together different expertise and form synergies that will be able to create the right solutions.

When it comes to the roadmap for 2022, we are a very ambitious company and we want to be everywhere in the world. As I said: from Africa to the world. We want to be able to have our footprint across new markets this year. We are in Africa and securing licenses across the globe. 2022 will be exciting for Flutterwave, just keep watching us!