Welcome to The Wavelength, a monthly newsletter that gives you insight into product updates, events, and exclusive news about Flutterwave.
The first quarter of the year is over 🎉and the second quarter is underway🎉🎉. But before moving forward, it’s always great to look back. Since the year began, we’ve made exciting product updates while deepening our product offering, made strategic partnerships to increase awareness, and crossed significant hurdles for future growth.
In today’s newsletter, we’ll recount some exciting news and moments and what they mean for your business and ours. As we continue the year, we’re excited to keep powering your business growth through payments. Happy reading 🙂
First, Data!
Wow, collecting payments with cards means more growth.
47%. In February, approximately 47% of payments received by our merchants were through cards. Our card payment method is the leading payment method for our merchants, followed closely by bank transfers at 40%. Have you turned on the two payment options for your business? If you haven’t, you can do that now. That’s our data insight to power your business growth this month.
In January…
We started with an important partnership
We opened up January with our sponsorship of Big Brother Titans. Big Brother Titans serve as a meeting point for Africans which reflects our goal of connecting Africa to the world through payments and beyond. As always, one highlight that stood out for us during this sponsorship is watching people key into the possibilities of payments while enabling more people with innovative solutions that will transform how they do business.
We set up The Love Shop
While businesses were neck-deep in preparations for Valentine’s Day, we were curating winning strategies they needed to sell out. This gave birth to The Love Shop, a short and witty series where we shared tips on driving sales, like creating more value for your customers for less to making your customers feel important. Sales tips on the love shop are timeless, and you can use them to grow your business any day and anytime. It’s valuable even after Valentine’s Day because love and relationships are always relevant and people are always looking for ways to express their love and affection.
Some other highlights were:
- Love shop store – We created a store where people could easily find the perfect gift on Valentine’s Day. Look out for more themed stores we’ll be creating in the future!
- Turning up security – While we deepened our reach across the continent, we kept educating our users on the importance of data privacy and protection, and how they can turn up safety at all times
Read more about data safety here.
In February…
Good news from Kenya
Some months ago, our operations were paused in Kenya. When this happened, we promised you that we’d take the necessary steps to regain your full trust and confidence. Today, we are excited to share that the Assets Recovery Agency has withdrawn all claims against Flutterwave, and as a result, we were cleared of any wrongdoing. This news consolidates our promise to continue providing you with best-in-class products in ways that meet all regulatory requirements and surpass your expectations. We are grateful to the agency for its thorough review and are committed to upholding the highest standards of compliance and transparency in all our operations in Kenya. We look forward to continuing business in Kenya!
We touched down in Egypt
In February, we received our Payment Services Provider and Payments Facilitator licenses in Egypt; this means Flutterwave can act as an official payment service provider in the country, collect payments on behalf of its customers and settle payments locally and globally. This makes us one of the few payment service providers in Egypt with local and global settlements capabilities.
Some other highlights were:
- New POS Aggregator Dashboard – This new dashboard gives you more control and visibility. You can register new agents from end to end, monitor your agents’ daily performance, view all your transactions in real-time, and so much more. The dashboard is ready to use.
Get started here
- Security is at the forefront of everything we do – We’re committed to protecting your data, and funds in your Flutterwave account. That’s why in February, we continued educating our users on why switching on key layers of security for their Flutterwave Business accounts is important. Let’s protect your account together here
In March…
#InternationalWomensDay: Making One Day, Every Day
March is for women, but shouldn’t every month and every day be? In celebration of International Women’s Day, we committed to making one day for women become every day for women. This means making conscious efforts to pull down structures that limit their dreams and creating a leveled playing field for women to thrive. As an organisation, we have achieved 40% female representation which brings us closer to our goal of 50-50 gender parity. We still have so much work to do, so here’s to making one day, every day!
We started anywhere.
Whenever you don’t know where to begin, “Just Start”. Whether it’s chasing your dreams, building a business, or going after the impossible -Just Start, Anywhere. In March, we celebrated the audacious entrepreneurs that started without much but an idea, determination, and a few tools. From Shedrack, founder of Sheddi Nigeria, who traveled miles from home to chase his dreams as a shoemaker in Lagos, to former IT specialist Yinka Anidugbe-Olaniyan, CEO of Sweetpod, who left her job to start her pastry business in her kitchen, years later. Their stories reflect our purpose of building exciting products that add real value to people’s lives and are accessible to everyone, everywhere.
Hello, Rwanda
We didn’t stop growing. In March, we received our Electronic Money Issuer and Remittance Licenses from the National Bank of Rwanda to help the company expand its operations in East Africa. With these new licenses, in addition to being a Payment Service Provider, Flutterwave can offer money deposit and withdrawal, electronic funds transfer, as well as inbound and outbound remittance services to the 13.46 million people living and working in Rwanda.
Read the full story here
Inside Flutterwave
If you heard bells ringing recently, it most likely echoed from The New York Stock Exchange thanks to our CEO/Founder, GB. In celebration of Founders Day for Black History Month, The New York Stock Exchange welcomed our Founder/CEO, GB who also rang The Closing Bell as sixty million people across the world watched on. The closing bell ceremony is a long-standing tradition that marks the end of the trading day on the NYSE floor. This moment was made possible because of your confidence in our ability to power your ambition. You + Us= Partnership Goals.
There’s more from inside Flutterwave:
- The product you should try – True talk, everything! But let’s tell you about SEND. With SEND you can transfer money to your family and friends in any part of the world at an incredible speed. Try it here
- Dad Joke FLW Edition: What did the sharpener say to the pencil during a debate? 🥁I have sharper ideas
- How I got here – Read Tunji’s Inspiring transition from marketing agencies to leading offline marketing at Flutterwave
- Our soundtrack of the month – Waloyo Yamoni – “We Overcome the Wind”
- Unlock the Possibilities of Flutterwave – The Flutterwave dashboard is one powerful tool that helps you do business better. If you haven’t, kindly verify your Flutterwave for Business account to unlock its possibilities beyond payments.
That is all for today. See you next time on The Wavelength!