Flutterwave Acquires Mono to Boost Africa Open Banking Push
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Flutterwave, the leading payments technology firm in Africa, announced yesterday, January 5, that it has acquired Mono, a pioneer in open banking infrastructure across the continent.
According to the announcement, the transaction will deepen Flutterwave’s long-term commitment to building a connected, interoperable financial system for Africa and position open banking as a core pillar in the evolution of alternative payment methods in the region.
Mono is an API-driven platform that provides secure access to identity verification, financial data, and account-to-account payments. These are capabilities that are quite critical in African markets as they move toward more trusted, data-led financial services.
The Evolution of Payments Across Africa
In its announcement, Flutterwave said that under the terms of the acquisition, Mono will continue to operate independently, and there will be no changes to the firm’s team, leadership structure, or everyday operations.
Flutterwave’s stake allows strategic alignment rather than operational control, which means that Mono can maintain its pace of innovation and contribute its open banking infrastructure to Flutterwave’s payments ecosystem.
The company’s statement said: “The acquisition reflects a growing recognition that the next phase of Africa’s payments growth will be driven less by card rails and more by bank-based, authenticated, and locally relevant payment methods. By integrating Mono’s open banking APIs, Flutterwave strengthens its ability to support faster onboarding, improved verification, reduced fraud, and seamless account-to-account payments.”
Furthermore, the collaboration will create a path for expanding into richer alternative payment methods, authenticated payment flows, and, in time, open banking-enabled stablecoin use cases.
Commenting on the acquisition, Flutterwave’s founder and CEO, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, said that the acquisition reflects how the company thinks about the future of financial infrastructure in Africa.
“Payments, data, and trust cannot exist in silos. Open banking provides the connective tissue, and Mono has built critical infrastructure in this space. This acquisition allows us to expand what’s possible for businesses operating across African markets, while staying grounded in security, compliance, and local relevance,” Agboola added.
Meanwhile, Mono’s CEO and founder, Abdulhamid Hassan, noted that he and his team built Mono to unlock Africa’s Open Banking potential, and since their first partnership with Flutterwave in 2021, and working together over the years, they have seen the power of a coordinated effort in their mission to achieve this goal.
“Mono’s capabilities across financial data access, direct bank payments, and identity verification, combined with Flutterwave’s unmatched scale and global reach, create something more defensible and comprehensive. This acquisition allows us to build the infrastructure layer that powers the next generation of African fintech at the speed and scale the continent deserves,” he added.
