Flutterwave and Chipper Cash Accounts To Be Closed Orders CBK

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has directed banks and microfinance institutions to seize dealing payments technology firms Flutterwave and Chipper Cash. The regulator has directed banks to end links with the technology firms which could mean closing all accounts and freezing the funds.

The lenders who are to report back to the CBK have been instructed to do so within seven days. This comes days after the regulator’s governor told journalists at the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting that the two technology firms are not licensed to provide remittance and payment services in the country.

“It has come to the attention of the Central Bank of Kenya that Flutterwave Payments Technology Ltd and Chipper Technologies Ltd have been engaging in the money remittance business without licensing and authorization by CBK,” the letter read.

The two technology firms, with backing of wealthy investors from the West, have rapidly expanded across the continent in recent years to the dissatisfaction of regulators accusing them of increasing fraud and moving of illicit money with lax requirements.

Flutterwave, currently at the centre of a complicated money laundering probe by the Assets Recovery Authority (ARA), with unclear information on whether the company has regulatory approvals to legally operate in the country.

This was witnessed when The High Court early this month, froze more than Ksh6.2 billion spread in 62 bank accounts belonging to the Nigerian start-up and four Kenyan nationals on fears they are proceeds of card fraud and money laundering.

The billions in Equity, KCB, Co-operative, EcoBank and Guaranty Trust Bank (GBT) accounts were frozen after the ARA applied to block the transactions, pending the filing of a petition to have the money confiscated by the government.

Flutterwave was founded in 2018 by Olugbenga Agboola and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and have their offices in Lagos, Nigeria and 1323 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, US. While Chipper Cash was founded in 2018 by Ugandan Ham Serunjogi and Ghanaian Maijid Moujaled to offer instant cross-border mobile money transfer in Africa.

Article By Sally Lizwa