For a reason that has never been clear, businesses in some African countries struggle to receive money from PayPal. Of course, it could be because of insufficient regulation or poor banking security in these countries, but the lack of the service affects many. We are about to forget this as Flutterwave has penned a collaboration with PayPal to allow customers globally to pay African merchants through its ‘Pay with PayPal’ feature.
Through the partnership, African businesses can connect with more than 377 million PayPal accounts globally. This way, they can then overcome the challenges presented by the highly fragmented and complex payment and banking infrastructure on the continent. This is going to be possible via a Flutterwave integration with PayPal so merchants can add PayPal as a payment option when receiving money outside the continent.
The service, which is already available for merchants with registered business accounts on Flutterwave, will be operational across 50 African countries and worldwide. Flutterwave hopes to roll out this service to individual merchants on the platform as well.
Since PayPal’s expansion to Africa, it has maintained a one-sided relationship with most countries on the continent, allowing them only to send money. And according to its website, only 12 African countries can send and receive money on the platform, but to varying degrees. They include Algeria, Botswana, Egypt, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Seychelles, and South Africa.
Users in countries who are not afforded the luxury to do so have to rely on using the PayPal account of a friend or family, based in countries where payments can be received. Next, they request the funds via bank transfer, leading to more incurred costs or use other cross-border money platforms like WorldRemit.
In a way, Flutterwave absorbs most of the risk PayPal thinks it will incur if it makes its platform more open to merchants in these countries. But at the same time, it solidifies Flutterwave’s position in the eyes of multinationals looking to enter the African market.
Recently, the payments company closed a $170 million Series C led by Avenir Growth Capital and Tiger Global, becoming a billion-dollar company in the process.
