Nigerian fintech plans African stablecoin payment system with Polygon: Report

Flutterwave, Nigeria's biggest fintech player, is cooking up a cross-border payment platform powered by stablecoins—proof that blockchain is about to revolutionize how money moves across Africa.

They're teaming up with Polygon Labs to roll this out across their 34-country network, as Bloomberg reported Thursday. Polygon's infrastructure—built for scalable, faster, and cheaper Ethereum transactions—will supercharge settlement speed and efficiency.

That's Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola, who says this move could transform fund flows across the continent, letting businesses and consumers dodge the high costs and delays of traditional payment systems.

This push comes as stablecoin adoption explodes across Africa. Tokens like USDT and USDC are increasingly used by locals to hedge against inflation and navigate currency instability, as Cointelegraph recently reported.

Why are stablecoins blowing up in Africa? Beyond hedging against currency devaluation, they're becoming killer remittance tools in a region where money transfers are crucial for household income and local economies.

According to a 2024 Chainalysis report, sending a $200 remittance from Sub-Saharan Africa is roughly 60% cheaper with stablecoins compared to traditional fiat methods.

Chainalysis data also showed Sub-Saharan Africa saw a surge in monthly onchain transaction volumes in March 2025, while other major regions declined. This spike coincided with sharp currency devaluations in Nigeria—Africa's most populous country—with stablecoins and Bitcoin driving most of the action.

Adoption is accelerating as more countries across the region, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa, move toward clearer and more supportive crypto regulations.