Uber Cash launches in Africa with Flutterwave

Uber Africa launches Uber Cash, a digital wallet feature in Sub-Saharan Africa through a partnership with Flutterwave, a Nigerian founded fintech firm based in San Francisco.

Now, without any physical cash and/or money in your bank account, you can still request an Uber ride. Uber Cash is a new payment feature on the app where riders can now load their ‘Uber Cash’ wallets with money for rides.

Uber Cash will be available in Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Ivory Coast. Methods for topping-up your Uber Cash wallets may vary across countries as Uber is directly working with mobile money providers and fintech companies of the aforementioned countries.

“For example in Nigeria you can use your Verve Card or mobile money. In Kenya, you can use M-Pesa and EFT (electronic funds transfer), and in South Africa you can top up with EFT,” said Alon Lits, Uber’s General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Uber Cash will help reduce the need for cash payments or direct withdrawals from their bank accounts, the latter being a somewhat problematic process that requires customers to give out sensitive card information.

Flutterwave is the infrastructure provider across all African countries where Uber Cash will be available. Transfers from Flutterwave’s Barter app, launched in 2019, to Uber Cash is also available.

Uber has been a Flutterwave customer in Africa since 2017 so this is not an entirely new partnership. The latter’s B2B platform helps companies build payments systems that cut across national boundaries.

However, Uber Cash is different in the sense that it could increase use cases for Flutterwave’s consumer-facing product, Barter, to more users similar to the way MPesa is used by millions of individual users in East Africa.

This is especially true considering Uber Cash isn’t just for rides; the feature is also available for Uber Eats, the ride-hailing company’s food delivery service that is currently only available in South Africa.

In April, Flutterwave launched Flutterwave Store to help small businesses build an online presence, overcoming the physical limitations imposed by coronavirus lockdowns. The store has a database of over 1,000 small businesses across Africa, according to Olugbenga Agboola, Flutterwave’s CEO.