UK-headquartered global cash payments platform Pipit Global and pan-African payments company Cellulant have extended their partnership agreement to include eighteen new countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Through the partnership, the two companies will provide both B2B and B2C payments services to existing and potential customers, according to a statement by Cellulant. These customers include financial institutions, ecommerce merchants, billers and billing platforms, mobile money providers and ewallets, and digital financial service providers.
The expansion comes five months after Pipit and Cellulant partnered to enable remittances into Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mali, Senegal, and Ghana. Cellulant was founded in 2002, and is headquartered in Kenya.
Pipit and Cellulant will drive the development of ‘for-purpose’ remittances, where users will be able to make bill payments and ecommerce transactions directly to suppliers. This moves away from the traditional model of peer-to-peer cash remittances.
This model removes the potential for ‘leakage’ – where remitted money may not be used for its intended purpose – and reduces the receiver risk associated with cash collection, the statement said. It also results in lower fees than traditional remittance prices.
“Making cash a core element of the digital economy, whilst maintaining that cash economy and giving the ability to transition between the two, gives real parity and freedom, and ultimately creates the social impact that drives global development and equality.
Our partnership with Cellulant will turn these development and equality goals and aspirations into tangible realities,”
said Pipit Global CEO Ollie Walsh.
“At Cellulant, we see digital payments as a significant opportunity to create transformational change for businesses, households and economies at large.
International and intraregional remittances are an engine for growth for many economies in Africa providing resilience to financial shocks and improving livelihoods,”
said David Waithaka, Cellulant’s Chief Business Officer for Enterprise.
Featured image: Unsplash (edited)
