Tanzania-based Cellulant Corporation has received approval to operate as a Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP) from the Bank of Tanzania.

This would place Cellulant amongst the top five PSSP players offering digital payments solutions to be endorsed by the Bank of Tanzania, the company said in a statement.

It would also give Cellulant access to a network of banks, merchants, payment processors, state governments, and consumers, whose digital payment requests are routed via PSSP e-payment infrastructure.

According to Edwin Kiiru, Country Manager for Cellulant Tanzania, the approval will help the company scale its payments solutions across the country.

Cellulant is a pan-African digital payments fintech company with a presence in 18 African countries. The company’s payments platform Tingg allows users to access multiple payment methods in different currencies.

“This approval sets Cellulant into a select group of few payment aggregators that operate as PSSPs in Tanzania and will help add millions of economically active but financially excluded Tanzanians into the digital payment ecosystem,”

Kiiru said about the latest announcement.

The 2002-founded company’s interoperable platform hosts 220 million users, with 154 payment options across 34 countries.

The company is responsible for 12% of digital payments in Africa, the company claims. Last year, it processed over US$8.5 billion in transaction value.

The company has raised US$54.5 million across three rounds of funding so far, including a 2018 Series C led by The Rise Fund for US$47.5 million, according to data on Crunchbase.

Endeavour Catalyst, TPG Growth, Satya Capital and Velocity Capital and Progression Africa participated in the round.