Digital payments have created new horizons of business for different companies. One such example is Flutterwave Scandal Inc., which is the leading digital payments company. However, the recent 3 billion USD valuation of this giant shattered when it came out that its CEO is doing unethical practices.
So what is this Flutterwave Scandal about? Let us try to understand what led to the quick downfall of this emerging payment giant in Africa.
Flutterwave Scandal Company CEO- An overview
It Flutterwave is a reputed and largest digital payments company in Africa. It had an unrivalled valuation of around 3 billion USD making its CEO, Olugbenga Agboola, a well-known entrepreneur in Africa.
He was born in 1984 in Lagos, Nigeria and is a software engineer by qualification. He has graduated from the University of Westminster and has co-founded this company with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji.
Agboola ranked in several business listings like TIMES 2021, 2020 by Fortune, and Quartz Africa’s 2019 Innovators. He has won a major “Tech Investor of the Year” award at the Business Insider. Although he had limited media appearances, he remains a reserved personality with limited media presences.
While he is responsible for Flutterwave Inc., he is popular due to his budding investments in different African startups. His most popular investment is a co-leading round of 3.4 million USD for UK-based fintech Dapio.
Flutterwave Scandal- What is it?
After having a significant overview of the company, you may be interested in what led to a scandal at the organisation?
The former Head of the Implementation at the company, Clara Wanjiku Odero has shared an eye-opening article on Medium. She claimed that she is being harassed by the CEO and had to fight with the management to clear her due after she decided to leave the company. She further added that the company’s negligence has led to her investigation by the Kenyan police.
She has spoken with the Rest of World about the culture and practices in the company which was then validated with around 10 other employees. This has further led to the confirmation of the claims.
Hence, while everything was claimed to be on the track for this budding fintech giant, the revelations by the ex-employee has shattered its image. Currently all the accounts of the company are seized while there is no confirmation about the future operations of this fintech unicorn.
Situation of Flutterwave before the scandal
After having a brief of the scandal at this fintech giant, let us now shift to the before and after situation of the company.
The company enjoyed a status of Fintech unicorn in 2021. The CEO, Olugbenga Agboola, was a role model for many budding finance businesses while it was easy for him to invest in the African markets.
The company had made numerous investments in local and global markets while Agboola had won several business awards.
Impact on Flutterwave’s reputation and business after the scandal
It is easy to understand that the 38-year old Agboola had become a larger than life personality in the African markets.
It was in 2022 that a court in Kenya froze around 40 million USD accounts of this company under the country’s anti-money laundering laws. The Kenya’s Asset Recovery Agency sought and granted a High Court order to freeze different accounts of Flutterwave Payment Technology Ltd.
The court order on July 1, 2022, stops the company from conducting any business transactions from more than twelve accounts with three different banks. All these accounts held 43 million USD in Sterling, Kenyan shillings, and Euros.
The impact of these allegations is strong on the company and the CEO’s reputation. The users of the Flutterwave payment gateway have reduced over the months of these allegations. While this has directly impacted the businesses, there are several other serious consequences.
The company has denied all the claims by the ex-employee while the former Head of the Implementation at the company, Clara Wanjiku Odero refused to back off from her stand.
Several employees are coming up with allegations related to the malpractices and scandalous activities of the company and the CEO.
While there are several cases over the company, some of them are highly serious. These include an official investigation regarding the ethical obligations conducted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company’s reputation and the CEO’s future have become under serious threat. While all the accounts of this fintech giant are seized currently, other Nigerian startups have also become under threat.
Wrapping Up
Hope everything is clear to you regarding the Flutterwave Scandal.
Olugbenga Agboola, the co-founder and chief executive, has created a phantom co-founder identity to secure large company shares. Further, Agboola has already offered the shared prices to his employees below the actual company’s valuation.
It was a popular Nigerian journalist, David Hudeyin, who made these allegations against the Flutterwave. The proof of all these allegations made this entire scandal highly interesting and worth noting.
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