Ripple buys stake in Flutterwave at $3.2B to add RLUSD, XRPL

Ripple took an equity stake in Flutterwave’s Series E round at a $3.2 billion valuation and announced a commercial integration that embeds RLUSD, Ripple Payments and the XRP Ledger into Flutterwave’s payment rails and the Send App remittance corridors across Africa. The announcement was made in June 2026.

Under the agreement, RLUSD will be used as a settlement asset for high-volume cross-border channels on Flutterwave’s platform. The companies say settlement can move from multi-day correspondent banking routes to transactions denominated in a regulated, dollar-backed token. RLUSD received approval from the New York Department of Financial Services in late 2024.

The XRP Ledger will be used to clear transactions more quickly. Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity system will route liquidity in real time and is intended to remove the need for pre-funded nostro accounts in cross-border corridors.

A unified API will link Flutterwave’s domestic rails — including card networks, mobile wallets and bank transfers — with Ripple Payments’ global network. The integration aims to provide a single technical connection for local and cross-border payment flows.

Flutterwave is headquartered in Nigeria and operates across Africa. The company processes more than one billion transactions and reports annual payment volume exceeding $50 billion. Ripple said the scale of Flutterwave’s network provides wide distribution for RLUSD and XRPL-based clearing.

Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Flutterwave’s chief executive, described the partnership as “building a payment superhighway” to link African businesses more directly with international markets. Reece Merrick, Ripple’s managing director for the Middle East and Africa, described the arrangement as establishing RLUSD within Flutterwave’s infrastructure and expanding the XRP Ledger’s role as a settlement layer for payments on the continent.

The agreement follows other Ripple partnerships in emerging markets, including a June 2026 plan to bring a peso-backed stablecoin, MXNB, to the XRP Ledger in a separate arrangement with a Mexican partner. Flutterwave previously announced a collaboration with Polygon in October 2025 to expand stablecoin payment options.

Company statements say the integration will offer guaranteed liquidity, predictable pricing and near real-time settlement for enterprise and consumer payments that previously used correspondent banking chains. The firms did not disclose financial details of the equity purchase beyond the $3.2 billion valuation.

The announcement describes the integration as an infrastructure-level change for Flutterwave’s settlement processes rather than an additional optional payment method. The companies cited common frictions in African cross-border payments — multi-day settlement times, high foreign-exchange margins and fragmented rails — as design considerations for the integration.

No regulatory approvals or implementation timelines were published in the announcement. Financial, technical and operational details for live settlements on RLUSD and XRPL through Flutterwave will depend on future development and commercial rollout plans shared by the companies.