Flutterwave founder and CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola outlined a strategy for fintech companies to move deeper into banking and related financial infrastructure during a fireside chat at TechCabal’s Moonshot 2026 conference in Lagos.
The discussion, titled “What happens when fintech becomes banking?”, took place at the National Theatre on October 28. Agboola spoke with Bloomberg News senior reporter Yinka Ibukun.
“Control at least a big piece of the stack”
Agboola said the push into banking is driven by operational requirements rather than an aim for financial services expansion for its own sake. He argued that improving payment experiences depends on controlling parts of the financial system.
“What we’ve seen is you cannot provide a great payment experience if you don’t control at least a big piece of the stack,” Agboola said, according to the conference account. He added: “We didn’t choose to do banking for the sake of banking. We chose to do banking to create more depth for our customers.”
In describing the broader shift, the release said the transition reflects an “operational necessity” for payment providers to manage more of the financial stack in order to support enterprise activity across Africa.
Using transaction data for working capital, credit gaps
The announcement also attributed Flutterwave’s lending and working-capital approach to its payment activity and transaction data. It stated that Flutterwave processes more than $50 billion in payments for individuals and businesses, and that it uses this data to address credit gaps through working-capital solutions and pre-funded payouts to companies.
Agboola was said to frame the overall objective of the banking push as deepening customer capabilities.
Stablecoins and cross-border settlement integrations
Agboola further described what the release says is Flutterwave’s stablecoin infrastructure. It claimed the company has built “the largest deployment of stablecoins in Africa,” and said it anchors its payment infrastructure with integrations across Ripple’s RLUSD, USDC, and USDT.
According to the conference release, the purpose is to enable African enterprises to settle cross-border bills directly with international suppliers, supported by Flutterwave’s integrations.
Infrastructure reach across countries
The release added that Flutterwave’s infrastructure reach covers more than 35 countries, and positioned the company’s evolution as a move from a payments provider toward what it described as an independent banking and digital asset capability.
Moonshot 2026’s conference programme included the discussion as part of its exploration of financial technology and the broader trend of fintech companies expanding into regulated banking functions.
This article reports the statements and claims attributed to Flutterwave and its CEO as presented in the supplied conference press release.
