Flutterwave joins forces with Polygon as primary blockchain partner for cross-border payments

Polygon Labs has announced that Polygon PoS, the premiere blockchain for payments and Real World Assets (RWA), has been selected by Flutterwave, Africa’s largest payments infrastructure that has processed over $40bn in transaction volume to date, to serve as the default blockchain network to power its new cross-border payments product.

The partnership positions Polygon’s infrastructure as foundational to payment flows globally, and marks a watershed moment for real-world stablecoin adoption in emerging markets.

Flutterwave will begin a phased rollout of Polygon, starting with a pilot program for select Flutterwave for Business customers in 2025. The solution will be made fully available to all Flutterwave for Business and Send App users in 2026 significantly boosting remittances and facilitating even more cross-border payments.

The collaboration will see Flutterwave integrate Polygon’s high-performance blockchain infrastructure to enable faster, cheaper cross-border payments for its extensive network of global multinationals like Uber, Audiomack etc.

“Thriving African businesses lose revenue each year to slow, expensive cross-border payments. Flutterwave saw what we see: stablecoins on Polygon can advance settlement times from days to seconds, and high fees into pennies,” said Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs. “It’s a massive vote of confidence in stablecoins as the future of cross-border payments.”

The partnership’s first phase will focus on enterprise clients to enable major corporations to leverage stablecoin rails for payment flows which will dramatically reduce settlement times from days to seconds and cut costs. After the initial phase, the partnership aims to expand to consumer remittances through Flutterwave’s Send App to bring affordable, instant cross-border payments to millions of individuals.

“Businesses in emerging economies process billions in cross-border payments annually, yet still face high costs and slow settlement times,” said Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, CEO and Founder of Flutterwave. “By partnering with Polygon, we’re introducing a solution that makes international payments even more simple and affordable than many local ones. This revolution will unlock new economic opportunities across the continent.”