•10 million SMEs to benefit

By Prince Osuagwu, Hi-Tech Editor & Cynthia Alo

Over the years, difficult cross-border remittances have been the bane of low trade indices within the African continent. It has also affected trade between Africa and the outside world.

Although significant improvements appears to be occurring almost on daily basis, following deployment of various technological innovations, there is no gainsaying the challenge still draws back trade developments in Africa.

For instance, in 2015, if you were to send money electronically from Lagos to Ghana it will take two to three days to get there. 

Using physical means like through a plane, it will get there the same day. But an effective trade transaction should be instant and real time. However, currency exchange expenses, inadequate payment infrastructure, compliance costs, and limited access to financial services  are major barriers to seamless payment operations for African businesses.

Interestingly, Fintech organizations like, Flutterwave have started building infrastructure to engender real time online cross-border remittances to boost continental trade, even though, high transaction costs continue to impede progress, rendering cross-border payments expensive and inefficient

However, a recent partnership between Microsoft and Flutterwave is said to have the capability of smashing those barriers and even empower no fewer than 10 million small and medium scale enterprises,SMEs in Africa, including Nigeria.

The partnership will see Microsoft provide Flutterwave with access to its cloud and artificial intelligence technologies, which will help the payment technology company to expand its reach and offer   services to more businesses and consumers across Africa.

Flutterwave is a payments technology company that provides a one-stop shop for businesses to accept payments from customers across Africa. 

The company’s platform supports a wide range of payment methods, including bank transfers, mobile money, and credit cards, and accommodates alot of businesses in the informal sector. 

Microsoft’s cloud and artificial intelligence technologies will help Flutterwave to improve its payments processing capabilities, develop new financial products and services, and expand its reach to new markets.

Speaking during a roundtable discussion with the press,  Lillian Barnard, President, Microsoft Africa   stated,  “We are committed to helping businesses in Africa succeed. “Our partnership with Flutterwave will help to accelerate financial inclusion on the continent and empower businesses to grow and succeed.”

So we’re going to help Flutterwave scale its business and reach just so  many  more customers globally around the world, creating even more employment on the African continent   and beyond.  Flutterwave is shifting away from its legacy cloud infrastructure onto the Microsoft Cloud and this will allow Flutterwave to process a high volume of payments at scale and allow them to do it in a seamless and very secure way, which will just improve the experience for so many customers around the world.

Also, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola, said: “We are excited to partner with Microsoft to accelerate financial inclusion in Africa. Microsoft’s cloud and artificial intelligence technologies will help us to scale our business and offer our services to more businesses and consumers across Africa.

“We want to provide infrastructure that will make payments really simple for the average consumer in Africa, or anywhere in the world, as long as it’s not private. We see opportunity in the partnership, we want to scale it.