Malta-based Binance is expanding its coverage on the African continent starting with West-Africa. On Thursday, the leading cryptocurrency exchange by daily trading volume announced a new fiat-to-crypto gateway for its users in Nigeria thanks to a partnership with Flutterwave, a global payment technology company.
“Starting today, users in Nigeria are able to purchase BTC, BUSD, BNB with Naira (NGN) through debit and a credit card through the Binance Fiat Gateway platform on the Flutterwave channel,” the exchange announced on Thursday.
This means that Binance users in Nigeria are now able to use their local bank-connected credit and debit cards to purchase the three assets available through the new service.
This new fiat onboarding channel is the second imitative by Binance to expand services in Africa after launching Binance Uganda last year.
The exchange plans to launch similar fiat-to-crypto gateway channels in other countries as well including Kenya and South Africa supporting pairs such as BTC/KES (Kenyan Shilling) and BTC/ZAR (South African Rand).
“Africa has illustrated one of the largest demands and instrumental use cases for cryptocurrency, notably for financial access, in the world’s second-largest continent,” Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the Binance CEO said in a statement on Thursday.
adding that “In Sub-Saharan Africa, about 95 million people remain unbanked while many regions in the area, including Nigeria, have embraced new technologies with an increasing amount of innovation. Working with Flutterwave will help bridge the fiat-to-crypto currency gap and we hope to stimulate more financial inclusion as Africa demonstrates strong potential in leading crypto adoption.”
As part of the launch promotion, Binance has some offers to its Nigerian users both in the country and outside. About $10,000 worth of cryptocurrency will be given to newly registered users on the new channel. Deposits below 100 USD equivalent in NGN will be charged at zero fees starting from October 24th.
Binance’s entry into the African market is a way to not only attempt to dominate the market which is ripe for disruption but also a good way to provide financial inclusion and help the spread of cryptocurrency in the continent which has massive numbers of people cut out from traditional banking channels.
This mission, coincidentally, is also Flutterwave idea of the right impact on the African market which makes their partnership ideal.
“What we do at Flutterwave is, create possibilities for the everyday African to become prosperous,” said Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Flutterwave’s co-founder and CEO.
“We create opportunities for the everyday African to reach prosperity levels that were beyond them in the past. That’s what this partnership is about. Africans are firmly part of the global financial community, Flutterwave is ensuring this.”
