Leading Pan-African Payments Company Cellulant
and Africa’s global bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, have
announced a partnership that will extend payment services for merchants
and consumers across 19 key African countries in which UBA operates.
These countries include Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia,
Tanzania, Uganda, Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad,
Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Liberia,
Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Senegal.
This network represents one of the primary tools in bringing together
Africa’s fragmented payments ecosystem, ensuring Cellulant’s Payment
Gateway, Tingg, is available to a vast number of merchants and consumers
in each of these markets.
Already over US$15bn in gross value payments are processed by Cellulant
across the shared markets – and this partnership has the scope to expand
the numbers significantly.
“We are delighted to welcome the United Bank for Africa as a new banking
partner,” says Akshay Grover, Group CEO at Cellulant. “As the payments
landscape in Africa continues to evolve, we believe that FinTech’s and
banks need to have a deeper collaboration in expanding opportunities
that will help ease payments & collections for businesses and their
consumers across all sectors of the economy.”
“The partnership with UBA extends our unparalleled reach across the
continent and gives merchants and consumers in our shared network the
opportunity to enjoy streamlined digital payments services directly
through their bank.”
Speaking on the partnership, Group Deputy Managing Director, United Bank
for Africa, Oliver Alawuba, said: ‘We are happy to welcome Cellulant to
Nigeria for this MoU signing and most importantly into UBA’s expansive
landscape. UBA is ready; we are indeed set to dominate the entire
digital banking space in Africa. “Our bank, as you know, is one of the
largest financial services institutions in Africa, providing services to
over 25 million customers in 23 countries 20 of which are on the African
continent. This speaks to our strength and capability in terms of
delivering innovative digital solutions to the last mile”.
He continued, “As the needs of our customers change, we are consistently
adapting innovative solutions and partnerships to provide them with
excellent and convenient services. With our strategic partnerships, we
can accelerate the drive for financial inclusion and economic wellbeing
of Africans on the continent. As a customer focused bank we are
dedicated to ensuring first rate customer service to all our customers
as well as fashion out the best possible ways to ease the way they
transact”.
Alawuba during the signing ceremony at the UBA House in Lagos, noted
that “Collaborating with Cellulant will allow for maximum impact when it
comes to changing lives and introducing smarter ways for people to make
payments in Africa”.
The announcement is the latest in a line of new partnerships for
Cellulant, as it continues to expand its network with leading financial
institutions like UBA. The company’s payments platform, Tingg, now
available via 120 banks, is a one-stop payment gateway for multinational
corporations, mid-caps and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) alike.
‘Our partnership with UBA is an opportunity to further simplify the
payment experience for businesses looking to collect payments online or
offline. This is particularly impactful for businesses who face daily
administrative challenges because of the industry’s fragmentation.” says
David Waithaka, Chief Revenue Officer at Cellulant.
The platform enables merchants to receive, view, and reconcile all their
payments via a single application programming interface (API), cutting
out the need to sign up for multiple payment providers, including mobile
money and mobile money operators (MoMos).
This simultaneously streamlines businesses’ administration processes
while expanding the range of payment options they can offer to
consumers, ensuring maximum choice and flexibility both offline and
online.
“By offering a one-stop-shop payments platform through UBA across the 19
countries it is present in Africa, we are opening up the possibility for
merchants to seamlessly accept payments from a huge range of payment
methods (banks, mobile money and cards), whilst managing all their
back-office processes in one place. Local, regional and global
businesses can now focus on growth and expansion across Africa.”
