Standard Bank, one of Africa’s largest banks by assets, has partnered with Flutterwave, a Nigeria-based fintech unicorn and one of Africa’s leading payments technology companies, to enhance digital payments experiences for its customers in Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Mauritius, Cote D’Ivoire and Malawi.
Flutterwave and Standard Bank are collaborating to build e-commerce, card issuing, payments, collections, USSD, lending, and buy-now-pay-later capabilities for millions of Africans.
The integration will help customers including individuals, SMEs, large companies, and institutions to fully leverage the power of digital payments and e-commerce to grow their businesses.
Africa Shifts to Digital Payments
According to Standard Bank, the COVID crisis has changed how people buy and sell across Africa—enabling a massive shift to digital payments and e-commerce.
Statista reports that digital responses were key to improving services within several sectors such as business, healthcare, and education. A shift to digital payments accounted for 33% of all COVID-19 responses by governments and the private sector of Sub-Saharan African countries in 2020.
Institutions, businesses, and individuals continue to think of ways to reach their customers using digital channels.
“Fintechs and Banks Are Trusted Partners Not Competitors”
With this partnership, Standard Bank is set to provide agile tech solutions to its customers to help them grow their businesses online and offline. This partnership denotes the unique collaborative relationship that exists between banks and fintech across Africa where the customers’ needs and satisfaction take utmost priority.
“We are proud that Flutterwave’s white-label services power digital efforts for top banks in Africa. Our partnership with Standard Bank demonstrates that fintechs and banks are not competitors but trusted partners with the key focus being the customer. We plan to grow financial and digital inclusion through this partnership and in the long run, we expect to generate more jobs in the digital economy and enable rapid business growth across the continent,” said Olugbenga GB Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave.
According to Margaret Nienaber, CEO of Client Solutions at Standard Bank, who spoke during the announcement, this partnership marks an important step in Standard Bank’s platform journey expanding from its leadership position in traditional financial services to meet clients on the digital platforms where they are shopping, socialising and doing business.
“Partnerships with innovative fintechs like Flutterwave underpin our strategy by integrating our scale and expertise across the African continent with the services and offerings of our partners to offer an expanded range of solutions, delivered in a seamless manner to our clients,” Nienaber adds.
Edited by Luis Monzon
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