Ripple brings RLUSD into Flutterwave’s $3.2B Africa network

In June 2026 Ripple invested in Flutterwave’s Series E to integrate RLUSD, the company’s U.S. dollar‑backed stablecoin, into Flutterwave’s $3.2 billion payments network to speed cross-border settlement across African business corridors.

The deal embeds RLUSD into selected high-volume payment rails and Send App remittance corridors as a settlement asset, while using the XRP Ledger for faster clearing. The firms plan to link Flutterwave’s domestic network with Ripple Payments through a unified API to enable flows between local cards, mobile wallets, bank transfers and remittances.

Flutterwave is valued at $3.2 billion, has processed more than 1 billion transactions totaling over $50 billion and has raised in excess of $500 million.

Nigeria is identified as the initial market for rollout, and the agreement covers broader African corridors where companies move cross-border commercial payments and remittances.

The companies stated the integration targets slow settlement times, fragmented payment routes and high foreign-exchange margins by shortening settlement windows, reducing conversion steps and providing a single settlement asset across multiple rails.

Reece Merrick, Ripple’s managing director for the Middle East and Africa, wrote on X: “RLUSD embedded in Flutterwave’s payment rails. XRPL for faster clearing. Ripple Payments bridging cross-border corridors across Africa … This is what stablecoin infrastructure looks like in practice.”

Flutterwave wrote in a statement that embedding RLUSD into its core ecosystem finalizes a ‘stablecoin-first’ payment architecture designed to eliminate traditional bottlenecks.

RLUSD is designed to maintain parity with the U.S. dollar and to settle value on blockchain rails. Using the XRP Ledger is intended to speed transaction finality compared with some banking channels.

The partnership places RLUSD inside infrastructure already used by businesses across the continent rather than requiring firms to adopt a separate crypto network. The companies stated that the approach should make settlement with RLUSD available within existing merchant and remittance workflows.

The arrangement will test whether a dollar-backed stablecoin can handle routine business settlement at scale, including remittances, local merchant payouts and cross-border commercial payments.