The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has renewed Payment Service Solution Provider License for Nigerian fintech, Cellulant.
This license enables Cellulant to continue providing online and offline payment solutions, including collections, check-out, biller aggregation, and payout services securely to thousands of businesses across Nigeria.
Cellulant’s digital payments platform, Tingg – enables businesses to seamlessly accept and make payments offline and online. A single integrated digital payments solution, Tingg addresses the complex needs of managing payments by simplifying the payment experience for the end-user and providing tools and processes for a merchant to manage their collections from a single dashboard.
“At Cellulant, we are committed to providing innovative and accessible digital payment solutions to businesses in Nigeria, which play a pivotal role in enabling financial inclusion and driving economic growth in the country. The renewal of our license is a vote of confidence from the Central Bank of Nigeria on the efforts of our team and partners, who have worked tirelessly to create safe and secure solutions that meet the evolving needs of businesses in Nigeria and the regulatory standards. Tingg is now used by thousands of businesses and outlets in the 36 states across Nigeria, enabling businesses to easily collect and make payments, monitor transactions, reconcile and settle cash seamlessly,” said Akshay Grover, Cellulant’s Group CEO.
Nigerian consumers have different payment options, including card, mobile money, bank transfer and cash- with volatile currency fluctuations and no single settlement framework. As a result, the demand for digital payments continues to increase. Roughly 50% of retail customers request to pay for their purchases using digital payment options. However, this demand presents several challenges for most merchants who might not always support the customer’s preferred payment method, resulting in merchants having to enable multiple solutions to support multiple wallets and varying processes for settlement and reversals for a merchant.
Tingg solves these challenges by delivering a single solution to accept all digital payment methods (Bank Transfers, USSD payments, Cards & Mobile Money) maintained with the highest compliance and security standards.
Speaking to the news, Frances Diribe, Cellulant’s Group Chief Risk & Compliance Officer, said, “Cellulant is dedicated to meeting the highest standards of risk and compliance management as we understand the importance of maintaining the integrity of our payment platform. We have invested heavily in robust security measures and compliance processes to ensure our customers can confidently use our services. We welcome this news that showcases our compliance with the standards, directives, and regulations of the Central Bank of Nigeria.”
In addition to being licensed to operate as a Payments Service Provider in multiple African countries, including Kenya, Ghana, Uganda, Botswana, and Zambia, Cellulant has also achieved global security, privacy, business continuity and service management standards. The company’s certifications include ISO 27001 (ISMS), ISO 27701 (PIMS), ISO 22301 (BCMS), ISO 20000-1 (Service Management) and PCI-DSS.
Cellulant provides two essential payment ecosystem solutions: Collections and Payouts. It has three key offerings – Checkout for businesses who want their customers to pay for goods or services online; In-store Payments enabling businesses to collect payments at a physical location; and Payouts, which allow both local and global businesses to make payments, process international transfers or make payments to service providers.
