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| Source: Flutterwave |
Africa’s leading payments technology company, Flutterwave, has announced the acquisition of Mono, a Nigerian open-banking infrastructure startup, in a full equity (all-stock) transaction valued between $25 million and $40 million. The CEO and founder of Mono, Abdulhamid, broke the news in a blog post, stating that Mono entered into a definitive agreement to join Flutterwave, following majority approval from its shareholders and board.
This is one of the most notable exits and mergers yet in African fintech, bringing together two companies that are helping other businesses move money and understand financial behavior. Flutterwave, founded in 2016, is one of Africa’s most successful fintech firms that provides payment infrastructure, enabling businesses to accept local and cross-border payments via cards, bank transfers, wallets, and more across 30+ African countries.
Mono, on the other hand, was launched in 2020, and like Plaid in the U.S., the company was built for the purpose of letting fintech companies, lenders, and businesses access bank-verified financial data, initiate direct bank payments, verify identity, and assess customer creditworthiness. According to the open banking platform, the merger is for the purpose of accelerating the companies' shared visions, giving Flutterwave the privilege to build a “full stack” fintech platform.
In other words, Mono now brings in bank data access and open banking capabilities, which are essential factors for providing more advanced financial services like credit scoring, risk assessment, identity verification, and data-enabled lending. Now, Flutterwave is positioned as a comprehensive platform that combines payments, data access, identity verification, and bank-to-account payments in one suite.
Expanding into Open Banking and Account-to-Account Payments
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| Source: Mono.co |
Open banking is still emerging in Africa, with Nigeria becoming the first country on the continent to adopt, approve, and implement the concept. The main idea of open banking is to give customers control over their financial data and allow them to safely share that data with trusted third-party apps and services.
When customers consent to share their banking data, financial service providers such as lenders, fintechs, and businesses no longer need to rely solely on traditional credit bureaus for information. They can easily assess real financial behavior, reduce risk, and offer more inclusive products such as loans, payments, and budgeting tools to people who were previously underserved.
Nigeria is often seen as a country where credit records are weak and financial institutions depend on real transaction history to assess risk. So, bringing Mono into its fold, Flutterwave has tied into this trend in Nigeria. The company can now improve onboarding and fraud prevention, enable smoother recurring payments, offer deeper bank data tools for partners, and support future products like stablecoin payments or open banking-enhanced services, all while increasing revenue opportunities.
In addition to that, fintech consolidation is happening worldwide, and this acquisition signals a shift in African fintech. Rather than competing separately, the merger aims to combine the companies' strengths to build stronger ecosystems that are similar to global efforts where payment rails and data services converge. Mono raised approximately $17.5 million in funding from major backers like Tiger Global, General Catalyst, and Target Global.
The acquisition reportedly allowed investors to at least recoup capital. In fact, some early investors are posting returns up to 20× their initial investment, which is a rare outcome in the challenging African startup funding environment. It's also worth noting that Mono will continue operating independently; this means that the company will retain its leadership and be product-focused while benefiting from Flutterwave’s scale and market reach.
"Mono will continue to operate as an independent entity; there will be no disruption to our service for our partners and end-users across our product suite. In fact, you can expect more innovation, deeper infrastructure, and scale," said CEO Abdulhamid. Many digital lenders in Nigeria already use Mono’s infrastructure. So, integrating with Flutterwave’s network could boost access to borrowers' credit histories, streamline assessment, lower barriers, and reduce underwriting risks for the lenders.
