Flutterwave & FIRS Revolutionize Tax Payments in Nigeria
Flutterwave has announced that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has integrated its payment solutions in an effort to enhance digital tax payment processes in Nigeria.
The partnership enables businesses and individuals to pay taxes more efficiently and securely, offering multiple payment options, real-time tracking, and offline payment capabilities.
This initiative can potentially simplify tax compliance and improve revenue collection across the country.
Read more: https://techafricanews.com/2025/03/20/flutterwave-firs-revolutionize-tax-payments-in-nigeria/
Safaricom’s M-PESA decline continues as Airtel Money gains
M-PESA, Safaricom’s mobile money service, has declined for the fifth consecutive quarter, weighed down by increased interoperability and Airtel Money’s aggressive promotions, including transaction fee refunds as airtime.
M-PESA’s market share fell by 2.3 percentage points to 91% in Q4 2024 compared to Q3, while Airtel Money grew from 7.6% to 8.9% in the same period, according to data from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA).
The sustained decline in M-PESA’s market share signals a shifting competitive landscape in Kenya’s mobile money ecosystem. Increased interoperability since 2022 has made it easier for customers to switch service providers. Airtel Money’s aggressive promotions, lower fees, and increased agent networks are drawing more customers.
Read more: https://techcabal.com/2025/03/20/safaricoms-m-pesa-decline-continues/
Visa and Emirates NBD Pay Join Forces to Revolutionize Digital Payments
Visa, a world leader in digital payments, and Emirates NBD Pay, a digital payment platform provided by Emirates NBD P.J.S.C., a leading banking group in the Middle East, North Africa and Türkiye (MENAT) region, have partnered to launch Cybersource, a Visa Acceptance Solutions offering. Cybersource will be incorporated into the Emirates NBD Pay platform, providing clients with robust payment solutions, advanced risk and fraud management tools such as Decision Manager, and cutting-edge compliance features leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning.
This partnership expands Emirates NBD Pay acceptance solutions across multiple verticals – including retail, hospitality, healthcare, travel, mass transit, education and exchange house, with cutting-edge technology, such as tokenization, and Account Funding Transactions (AFT) capabilities to facilitate wallet top ups while ensuring merchants meet compliance and security requirements.
Less than a quarter of Europe’s fintech unicorns are profitable
Only 13 fintech unicorns in Europe are profitable, according to data collected by Sifted. Financial superapp Revolut, crypto investment platform Bitpanda and payments fintech SumUp are among the companies that have reported pre-tax profits in their latest publicly-available annual results.
The results follow a particular testing period for the fintech sector. Faced with mounting compliance demands and rising interest rates, VC funding for the sector fell from a high of $29bn in 2021 to $8.8bn last year as investors began to prioritise profitability over growth-at-all-costs.
Read more: https://sifted.eu/articles/profitable-fintech-unicorns
Belmoney and dLocal team on cross-border remittances
The global remittance industry remains burdened with high fees and slow transaction speeds. According to the IMF, transfers under $200 incur average fees of 10%, reaching up to 20% in smaller migration corridors. The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals call for a reduction in remittance costs to 3%, yet the current average sits at 6.5%—posing a financial burden on senders and recipients, particularly in low-income regions.
Through this partnership, dLocal enables Belmoney to facilitate cross-border payouts, leveraging over 900 local and alternative payment methods (APMs), such as credit and debit cards, bank transfers, and instant transactions in Bangladesh, Ecuador, Peru, and Pakistan—along with digital wallets like OPay in Nigeria and GCash in the Philippines. This integration significantly improves processing speeds, service reliability, and cost efficiency, ensuring that users receive their funds quickly and securely.
Read more: https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/104882/belmoney-and-dlocal-team-on-cross-border-remittances
Europe exposed to economic coercion via payment schemes, ECB warns
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Europe’s dependence on American payment providers leaves it open to economic coercion, European Central Bank chief economist Philip Lane said on Thursday, outlining a key risk in the deteriorating relationship between Europe and the U.S.
Europe has been reevaluating its ties with the U.S. since President Donald Trump said the EU had been “formed to screw” his country and promised a host of retaliatory measures.
A key worry is that Visa and Mastercard now process around two-thirds of card payments in the euro zone while tech firms including Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal also account for a substantial chunk of retail transactions.
Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/europes-dependence-u-payment-firms-121639791.html
