tl;dr
- Flutterwave, Africa’s largest payment infrastructure provider, chooses Polygon as its primary blockchain for a new cross-border payment product
- Multi-year collaboration will enable instant, low-cost stable payments for global companies like Uber and Audiomack in over 30 African countries.
- Solves high fees and slow settlement times in emerging markets with near-instant settlement and near-zero fees.
Flutterwave, the leading payment infrastructure provider in Africa with over $40 billion processed to date, has chosen Polygon as the default blockchain network for a new cross-border payments product.
Multi-year collaboration marks one of the largest real-world deployments of stablecoins in emerging markets. Polygon continues to be the go-to solution for global money movement, with high reliability and low fees.
Flutterwave will begin a phased rollout on Polygon in 2025, starting with enterprise customers through Flutterwave for Business, followed by consumer funds flow on Send App in 2026.
The goal: to enable instant, affordable and stable payments for businesses and individuals in more than 30 African countries.
Polygon solves cross-border payments
Cross-border payments in emerging markets remain notoriously inefficient.
For businesses in Africa, settlement can take days and fees often exceed 8% of the transaction value, among the highest in the world.
The Polygon Labs x Flutterwave collaboration directly addresses these issues.
By integrating Polygon’s high-performance blockchain infrastructure, Flutterwave can offer instant settlement, low-cost transfers, and transparent flows for businesses and consumers.
The first deployment focuses on enterprise customers and multinationals like Uber and Audiomack, allowing them to move money faster and more efficiently across borders.
Subsequent phases will bring the same speed and affordability to millions of people using Flutterwave’s Send app, reducing remittance costs and increasing accessibility.
Stablecoins are the next infrastructure for emerging markets
The collaboration offers a model for the adoption of stablecoins in real-world economies.
Traditional banking infrastructures in many emerging markets are struggling to keep pace with digital commerce. Leveraging Polygon’s sub-$0.01 transaction fees and near-instant settlement, Flutterwave can bring financial access to regions where reliability and affordability are often in tension.
Polygon is already a leader in emerging markets. As Wall Street turns to stablecoins, everyday users in emerging markets are driving adoption. Rising prices on competing networks have pushed users towards cheaper alternatives. Small USDC transfers on Polygon jumped 141% in 2025, with Argentina and Brazil accounting for a significant portion of this growth.
For people experiencing currency volatility or fund transfer bottlenecks, sending a stablecoin to Polygon costs fractions of a cent and is confirmed instantly.
Building the future of payments on Polygon
The Flutterwave venture comes as Polygon cements its position as the go-to solution for global payments, moving billions in assets instantly.
Recent milestones include:
- Processing half of all US USDC transfers between $100 and $1,000.
- Powering the tokenization of BlackRock’s BUIDL fund via Securitize, which now exceeds $1 billion in assets under management.
- Support for consumer applications like Polymarket, which has exceeded $1.1 billion in volume and recently received a $2 billion investment from ICE.
A new standard for global payments
By integrating Flutterwave’s scale with Polygon’s trust rails, cross-border payments can be redefined: instant and low-cost.
The collaboration brings stablecoins from crypto exchanges to everyday commerce, from paying Uber drivers to enabling small merchants in Lagos, Nairobi or Johannesburg to receive payments in seconds.
This is a major step forward in how blockchain can solve real-world payment challenges at scale, setting a new standard for financial inclusion and interoperability in the digital age.
