Africa’s global bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, and
leading Pan-African Payments Company Cellulant 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 unparalled reach across
the continent and gives merchants and consumers in our shared network the
opportunity to enjoy streamlined digital payments services direrctly 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.”
