This investment is a part of Flutterwave’s Series E funding round, a milestone that underscores the company’s  strengthening institutional position and sets the stage for further strategic announcements in the coming months.

In a landmark move for the African digital economy, this strategic investment integrates Ripple’s USD-denominated stablecoin RLUSD, Ripple’s payments network and the XRP Ledger (XRPL) into Flutterwave’s payment infrastructure, creating an unstoppable, stablecoin-native financial superhighway that positions Nigeria and the broader continent at the forefront of global digital asset adoption.

SAN FRANCISCO and LAGOS, Nigeria, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments infrastructure company, today announces a strategic investment from Ripple, the leading provider of blockchain-based enterprise solutions for traditional and digital finance. This partnership marks the definitive next phase of Flutterwave’s long-term stablecoin strategy, seamlessly connecting its existing cross-border settlement capabilities with enterprise-grade digital liquidity. By anchoring this infrastructure in the heart of the continent, Flutterwave is empowering African businesses to bypass legacy frictions, ultimately bolstering Nigeria’s role as the primary hub for global digital asset trade and driving sustained economic resilience across the African continent. The investment is a part of Flutterwave’s Series E fundraising, which values the company at $3.2 billion, reflecting deep institutional alignment with the company’s strong financial fundamentals and long-term value proposition.

This integration is the realization of a clear, multi-year roadmap that has already seen Flutterwave systematically integrate stablecoin-powered settlement, liquidity, and remittance rails. By embedding RLUSD into its core ecosystem, the company is finalizing a ‘stablecoin-first’ payment architecture that eliminates traditional bottlenecks. This unified approach delivers a consistent, scalable, and compliant liquidity stack that transforms how African enterprises interact with global markets, effectively cementing a new way for digital money acceptance that is both borderless and locally grounded.

The strategic investment and partnership centers on a robust product integration designed to accelerate the adoption of digital asset infrastructure, bringing unprecedented speed, liquidity, and cost-efficiency to cross-border commerce throughout Africa. The partnership is built on three core pillars: embedding RLUSD into Flutterwave’s payment rails and Send App remittance corridors as a primary settlement asset for high-volume channels; leveraging the XRP Ledger (XRPL) for faster transaction clearing; and deploying a unified API to seamlessly bridge Flutterwave’s domestic network with Ripple Payments, Ripple’s global payments network.

By merging traditional fiat payment methods, including local cards, mobile wallets, and bank transfers, with Ripple’s enterprise blockchain technology, the partnership eliminates the historical friction points of African cross-border payments, such as multi-day delays and inflated FX margins. Instead, businesses will experience guaranteed liquidity, predictable pricing, and real-time settlement.

“Flutterwave has built one of the most advanced payments networks in Africa, and as its infrastructure evolves, stablecoins are becoming central to that story,” said Reece Merrick, Managing Director, MEA at Ripple. “Our investment will establish RLUSD within that infrastructure, with Flutterwave driving stablecoin flows over the XRPL and deepening its role as a settlement layer for real-world payments across the continent. Together we also plan to bring Ripple Payments’ speed and efficiency to cross-border transactions in the region, opening up faster, lower-cost financial services to businesses and consumers at scale.”

Olugbenga “GB” Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, added: “This investment marks a pivotal moment in our journey, enabling us to significantly scale our infrastructure and expand our stablecoin-enabled payments roadmap. By unlocking faster settlement and lower-cost cross-border payments, we are building a payment superhighway that connects African commerce directly to the global economy. This partnership is a catalyst for Nigerian and African sovereignty in the digital financial age, ensuring our markets are primary participants in the global digital asset revolution.”

With this capital and a deepened product alliance, Flutterwave will accelerate its goal to bridge traditional financial systems with next-generation digital asset infrastructure. Building on its established scale – having raised over US$500m and processed over a billion transactions worth over US$50bn – Flutterwave is positioned to unlock massive economic potential for small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and global enterprises operating across Africa.

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Embedded AI features empower associates to work more efficiently, standardize operations across properties, and elevate guest service

AUSTIN, Texas, June 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Oracle today announced Oracle OPERA Cloud Assistant, a new suite of AI-powered capabilities embedded directly within the familiar workflows of Oracle OPERA Cloud. These innovations help hoteliers automate guest room assignments, generate AI-driven rate descriptions that improve quality and consistency, and strengthen revenue management, while enabling staff to work more efficiently.

For example, instead of spending time searching through documentation or consulting a manager, associates can simply ask OPERA Cloud questions such as, “How do I run a report?” or “How do I resolve this guest issue?” to receive real-time guidance. Together with integrated AI language translation supporting global operations across 230 countries and territories, OPERA Cloud Assistant empowers associates to take action to streamline operations, and deliver better experiences to guests across regions.

All these capabilities are available today at no additional cost to OPERA Cloud customers worldwide. To see the OPERA Cloud platform in action visit HITEC booth #842 on June 15-18th.

“AI is reshaping how hotels operate and deliver great guest experiences,” said Scott Strickland, chief commercial officer, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. “Some of the most impactful innovations are those helping hoteliers make better decisions, reduce operational complexity, generate more revenue through upsells, and respond more effectively to ever-changing guest needs. With new AI capabilities embedded directly within Oracle OPERA Cloud, we’re helping franchisees and the teams that support them unlock new levels of productivity, consistency, and operational agility, all without disrupting existing workflows.”

Wyndham, one of the world’s largest hotel franchisors, currently has more than 2,100 properties running on OPERA Cloud. The addition of OPERA Cloud Assistant builds on a multi-year effort to integrate AI across the company’s ecosystem, reflecting its early focus on applying advanced technologies to help franchisees drive greater revenue and efficiencies amid a rapidly evolving hospitality landscape.

Embedded natively within existing OPERA Cloud configurations, revenue, and front desk workflows, the new AI capabilities simplify complex processes, automate routine tasks, and help hotel teams increase productivity, make faster decisions, and deliver more personalized service throughout the guest journey. By bringing AI into familiar workflows, Oracle enables hospitality organizations to accelerate productivity, standardize best practices across global operations, and improve business performance without adding separate systems, integrations, overhead, or training.

“AI has the potential to transform hotel operations when it is seamlessly integrated into associates’ daily work,” said Laura Calin, senior vice president, Oracle Consumer Industries. “With OPERA Cloud, users have a unified AI-enabled platform that streamlines operations, removes challenges, and helps staff make smarter decisions in real time. By reducing friction and automating routine tasks, hotel associates can focus on what matters most – delivering exceptional service.”

With the new OPERA Cloud AI capabilities, hoteliers can:

Empower employees with instant operational intelligence: OPERA Cloud Assistant provides hotel staff with real-time, natural-language access to operational knowledge, hotel procedures, and Oracle documentation. Whether an associate needs guidance on completing a night audit or navigating a system process, the assistant delivers immediate answers in the employee’s preferred language. This helps accelerate onboarding, reduce dependence on managers, improve productivity, and enable consistent service delivery during peak operating periods.Deliver personalized guest experiences through intelligent room assignment: AI-assisted room assignment analyzes reservation details, guest preferences, stay history, and operational parameters to recommend the most suitable room for each guest. By helping hotels better match guests with preferred room features, these recommendations can improve guest satisfaction, increase loyalty, reduce manual effort at the front desk, and enable faster, more seamless check-in experiences.Strengthen revenue optimization and pricing consistency: AI-generated rate code descriptions automatically create comprehensive, standardized rate content using package details, rate attributes, and structured inputs already available within OPERA Cloud. By improving the quality and consistency of rate information across distribution channels, hotels can enhance pricing transparency, reduce administrative effort, and support stronger revenue management practices across multi-property portfolios.Scale global operations with multilingual consistency: AI-powered translation generates ready-to-use translations for configuration descriptions and operational content, helping global hotel brands maintain consistent standards, terminology, and brand alignment across regions. These capabilities simplify global deployments and reduce the complexity of managing multilingual environments.

By combining operational intelligence, workflow automation, and AI-driven decision support within a single platform, Oracle continues to help hospitality organizations increase efficiency, improve profitability, and deliver memorable guest experiences that support long-term loyalty and revenue growth at scale.

To learn more visit www.oracle.com/Hospitality.

Oracle Hospitality
Oracle technology serves independent hoteliers, global hotel chains, casinos, and cruise lines in over 230 countries and territories. Our cloud-native solutions connect the entire business from the front desk to the dining room and back office, and our customers use intuitive tools and AI insights to fuel frictionless guest experiences, maximize profitability, and encourage long-term loyalty. To learn more, please visit www.oracle.com/Hospitality.

About Oracle
Oracle offers integrated suites of applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit us at www.oracle.com.

Trademarks
Oracle, Java, MySQL and NetSuite are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation. NetSuite was the first cloud company–ushering in the new era of cloud computing.

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SOURCE Oracle

BEIJING, June 16, 2026 /CNW/ — China recently released its national human rights action plan, stating that over the next five years it will actively promote global governance in this field. To achieve this, the country will work to improve global human rights governance, carry out dialogue, and engage in effective international cooperation in this area. It will also actively participate in human rights affairs within the United Nations and promote the review of the implementation of related treaties.

Over the past 60 years, China’s commitment to human rights has extended globally. Beijing has pledged more than 53 billion U.S. dollars to support African nations, expanded zero-tariff access for partner countries, and helped build more than 130 medical centers.

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SOURCE CGTN Spanish