The CEO of Flutterwave, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, has spoken about the company’s latest move to build stablecoin rails on top of its existing and compliant fiat rails.
Speaking at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, GB said stablecoins speed up settlement times and in turn enables more turnaround and trade opportunity across the entire sales cycle.
Explaining how stablecoins work, GB said:
“Money doesn’t actually move, instruction moves, and when you use blockchain to move that instruction, you are creating a transparent way to move money without sacrificing the fiat guard rails.
What it literally does is make it easier and quicker to move money especially in emerging markets where money movement is very very key dependent for growth in the economy.”
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Being the most licensed non-bank fiat company in Africa and operational over the last 10 years, GB explained that the introduction of stablecoins does not change the company’s operations.
“When it comes to stablecoins, nothing is changing in our customer experience. You want to send money from Nigeria to South Africa or the United States, nothing is changing.
What is changing is under the hood. We’re making it quicker and faster to move that money from the send to the business via stablecoin rails, via USDC, which is regulated, backed by the dollar, and just makes its quicker and faster.
Unlike most FIs [financial institutions] in the world, in Africa, you need a correspond bank first in order to move money via SWIFT rails. This takes away all that complexity and makes it simpler for money to move quicker yet with the entire infrastructure that guards money movement globally right now.”
ICYMI: Last week, Africa’s largest start-up and payments giant @theflutterwave – valued at $3bn – showcased their $USDC merchant settlement solution built on #Hedera with support from @The_Hashgraph Association’s #Hashgraph Enterprise Program.@BitcoinKE:https://t.co/FsNoYQHCpS
— Hedera (@hedera) October 9, 2023
The Send App Stablecoin Play
Giving an example of PayDay, GB said the company is enabling Nigerian engineers to be paid via stablecoins on Flutterwave.
GB also talked about the Send App consumer app and how the company is building the stablecoin backend infrastructure enabling the money to move in seconds.
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Speaking on the costs, GB said:
“If you’re doing B2B payments, you can pay as low as 0.5% for example, compared to before through maybe a different rail which could be as high as 1.5%.
So there’s a lot of cost savings in there and yet a lot more efficiency as an entire infrastructure.”
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When asked about the broader fintech space in Africa, GB highlighted products like PiggyVest and Bamboo for savings and investment which are solving real problems in Africa.
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When it comes to VC investments, GB provided some valuable insights for anyone looking at Africa.
“I think being able to understand emerging markets is very key. You have to also have an interest in emerging markets, not just deploying dollars and stepping back.
Startups need growth partners and investors, not just checks. Check are key, but beyond the checks, how do you help us to growth from Series A to Series B? How do we grow go-to market? How do you elp us to scale compliance?
All of tht skill set helps a lot to actually help to grow to the next level as well.”
Speaking on the next 5 years, GB said:
“I think in the next five years, stablecoins will become so entrenched in the entire global financial infrastructure. We will see stablecoins that are even backed by non-US currencies over time.
For example, if you want to tokenize the Naira, it doesn’t have to leave Nigeria for that to happen. It can happen in Nigeria for Nigeria.
So, we will start seeing a lot of local stablecoins plays happening across each country and you will see a lot of companies issues their own stablecoins because now its democratized and bring the entire infra on-chain helping them become more efficient, save more money and also create more efficient treasury plays which were not possible before.
So in five years there will be a lot more companies having their own stablecoins and they can use that to meet at some point for acceptance.”
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When it comes to consumer usage, GB opined:
“I think the apps we use will still remain the apps we use. The underlying hood will change. So you like Venmo, you like PayPal, you like Cash App, that’s fine, but behind the scene you’ll start seeing money moving via stable rails.
The apps are not gonna change in my opinion. They might evolve yes, but the risks are going to keep changing, but the behavior o the consumer will not change.”
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Stay tuned to BitKE updates on stablecoin developments in Africa.
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