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Flutterwave, the Pan-African payments startup, has launched a new product called Tuition by Flutterwave which will enable Africans to pay tuition for universities in the West in their local currencies. The new product was announced in a blog post on 11th July 2023. African students are increasingly attending universities in the West with the UK, USA, Canada and France being popular destinations.
Despite this, paying tuition is still difficult with long wait times and expensive charges as the most convenient means is doing bank transfers. The new product is currently available for Nigerian students but will be launched in other markets like Uganda in due course. Currently, a student can only pay for UK universities, but Flutterwave is planning to roll out the product to more universities and even high schools.
Speaking about this new product, the co-founder and CEO, Olugbenga Agboola said, “We are excited to launch Tuition to support the dreams of African students across all levels who want to study anywhere without worrying about how to meet the deadline for their school fees payment. With Tuition, we are providing a safer, reliable, and affordable means for African students to pursue their dreams and seamlessly get financial support from parents, guardians, and sponsors.”
The product manager of Tuition by Flutterwave, Stella Elele, added “We are always looking for new ways to make payment challenges in Africa hassle-free, and we are confident that Tuition will be a game changer for parents who want to support their children’s education. We are excited to offer this solution to parents in Nigeria, with plans to eventually roll out the service to other African countries. We want to provide the best possible service and support for our customers.”
Flutterwave was founded in 2016, and it offers end-to-end payments technology and infrastructure. It is used by hundreds of thousands of merchants and businesses across Africa to receive payments from anyone across the world. Flutterwave integrates with local payments providers which help anyone to pay in their local currency for example a buyer in Uganda will pay in shillings using Mobile Money or card, but the merchant in Nigeria will receive the money in Naira.
Started in Nigeria as its first market, Flutterwave has expanded to over 30 African countries including Uganda where it commenced operations in 2018. It is one of Africa’s most funded startups having raised close to $500 million since 2016, and is now the continent’s most valued startup with a $3 billion valuation as per its last funding round in 2022 where the startup revealed it had processed 200 million transactions worth about $16bn. The new tuition product is part of Flutterwave’s plans to build a payments ecosystem, which also includes Send, a remittance service, as part of its Flutterwave 3.0 mission.