Using Flutterwave Technology to Withdraw Money from a United States Payoneer Account to Mpesa
One of the biggest challenges that businesses in Africa encounter is making international payments. Start-ups and online businesses in particular find it hard to complete or receive payments owing to high transaction costs.
To combat this challenge, many payment-processing service companies have sprouted in the continent. One of these companies is Flutterwave, a Lagos and San Francisco-based fintech company. Here is all you need to know about it and how to transfer funds from Payoneer to M-Pesa using their services.
About Flutterwave Technology
Flutterwave was created in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, a tech expert, together with a group of engineers, developers, and technicians. The company attracted heavy funding from global fintech investors like Grey Crott and the Y-Combinator Continuity Fund.
The purpose of the company was to make payments between businesses in Africa easier and convenient. It hit the ground running and was named Africa’s best fintech company at the Apps Africa Innovation Awards in 2017. Since its inception, it has changed the face of B2B transactions across the continent tremendously.
The advantage that Flutterwave technology has over global payment processing companies like PayPal and Payoneer is its unique focus on Africa. It allows businesses to transact in local currencies, which is not always possible with global companies.
You would be hard-pressed to find an international payment processing service that allows Naira-Kenyan Shillings transactions for instance, although Nigeria and Kenyans companies conduct business all the time. To complete such transactions using a global company, you might have to first convert your Ksh to USD, then again to Naira. This can be costly over the long haul.
Additionally, Flutterwave processes payments from a wide variety of financial institutions, not just banks as many international companies do. Other platforms of payment that the company works with include mobile money wallets, credit cards, cash tokens, and ACH. In a continent that is home to the world’s largest portion of an unbanked population, the diverse services that the company offers are a true necessity.
How to Withdraw Funds from Payoneer to M-Pesa using Flutterwave
Payoneer is a global payment processing company that enables international money transfers. This is critical in ensuring the survival of many freelancing and online jobs since clients and service providers often work from different parts of the world.
Payoneer allows you to convert money from USD to Kenyan shillings. But there is a catch; you must have a bank account to link to your Payoneer account. And not any bank will suffice; your bank must have an agreement with Payoneer to receive payments from the company on behalf of its customers. In a country where only a small portion of the population has bank accounts, this can be quite an intimidating hurdle.
M-Pesa on the other hand is a mobile money transfer service that is incredibly popular in Kenya. It is highly accessible to a large portion of the population; as long as you have a Safaricom mobile number, you can have an M-Pesa account. The only difficulty is that most international money transfer services like Payoneer rarely partner with M-Pesa or such other companies to enable financial transactions.
Flutterwave creates a link between these two services. It allows you to withdraw money from your Payoneer account directly to your M-Pesa account. What’s better, the API provided by the company is easy to maneuver, and the transaction can be complete in a matter of seconds.
Before you initiate your withdrawal, first ensure that you have a Payoneer, M-Pesa, and Flutterwave account. Also, ensure that your Payoneer account is funded depending on the amount of money you wish to withdraw. Then, go to the transfers section of the Flutterwave dashboard. After that, choose the option of a new transfer, enter the amount of money you want to withdraw from Payoneer, choose the Ksh currency, input your M-Pesa account details, and then complete the withdrawal.
You can initiate transfers using multiple currencies provided you have the money in your account. The transaction rates are usually displayed on the transfers page so that you know exactly how much money you will be receiving in the new currency.
Conclusion
If you are a Kenyan business owner and you need to make regular withdrawals from Payoneer directly to your M-Pesa account, Flutterwave is a great tool to use. It offers unrivaled convenience and accessibility.
Withdrawing money from Payoneer to M-Pesa using Flutterwave technology is an easy process. The Flutterwave website is nicely designed and easy to maneuver. You will get the hang of it within minutes of exploring the site.
Sources
https://www.apps-for-money-transfer.com/flutterwave-simbapay/
https://flutterwave.com/ke/about
https://developer.flutterwave.com/docs/transfers
https://payoneer.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18605/~/withdraw-to-bank—faq