Africa’s largest fintech company, Flutterwave, has acquired Nigerian open banking startup Mono in an all‑stock transaction valued between $25 million and $40 million.
The deal unites two major players in Africa’s financial infrastructure space, as Flutterwave seeks to expand its payments stack with open banking, data, and identity verification capabilities.
Mono will continue to operate independently, with no changes to its leadership or day‑to‑day operations. Investors in Mono are expected to recoup their capital, with some early backers reportedly earning returns of up to 20x.
Flutterwave explained that Mono’s platform provides secure access to financial data, identity verification, and account‑to‑account payment services—tools increasingly critical as African markets shift toward authenticated, bank‑based payment methods.
Flutterwave Founder and CEO Olugbenga “GB” Agboola said: “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.”
Mono’s Founder and CEO Abdulhamid Hassan added: “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.”
Integration and Benefits
Flutterwave said Mono’s open banking APIs will strengthen its ability to support faster merchant onboarding, improve verification processes, reduce fraud, and enable seamless account‑to‑account payments across multiple African markets.
Beyond payments, the collaboration is expected to simplify compliance‑heavy processes for businesses, including identity checks and bank verification.
Developers and ecosystem partners will benefit from a unified environment where payments and financial data infrastructure coexist, reducing complexity and accelerating product development.
The companies noted that the acquisition enhances Flutterwave’s vertical depth, with potential benefits such as stronger margins, deeper platform stickiness, and more differentiated infrastructure.
From a regulatory perspective, the deal supports increased standardization, improved data protection, and compliance with global security standards like PCI‑DSS and ISO 27001.
Why It Matters
Africa’s fintech ecosystem is shifting away from card‑dominated systems toward bank‑based, authenticated, and alternative payment methods.
Open banking is emerging as a critical enabler of this transition, supporting trusted data sharing, account‑to‑account payments, and new financial products.
By acquiring Mono, Flutterwave is positioning itself to play a central role in shaping the next phase of Africa’s payments growth, particularly as demand rises for interoperable systems that can scale across borders while meeting compliance and innovation needs.
Open banking is still at an early stage in many African markets but is increasingly seen as foundational infrastructure for fintech innovation, alternative payments, and future use cases such as digital assets and stablecoins.
In a recent interview, Hassan recalled leaving Paystack to establish Mono in 2020. At the time, open banking was not yet a buzzword in Nigeria, but he believed data—not just payments—would power the next generation of fintech.
Five years later, Mono has processed more than 150 billion transactions, served over 7 million users, and expanded into Kenya and Ghana.
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