As General Manager, Ibrahim will manage and oversee the day-to-day operations and provide leadership as Cellulant expands coverage for Tingg, Cellulant’s Digital Payments platform, across Nigeria.

“We are thrilled to announce the appointment of Ibrahim as General Manager for Cellulant in Nigeria. Ibrahim brings a wealth of experience and expertise in the financial technology sector.

“We are confident that his leadership and vision will drive Tingg and Cellulant to new heights in the Nigerian market,” said Sike Bamisebi, Cellulant’s Group Chief Business Officer. “ As a cutting-edge payments technology company, we believe that our innovative solutions are revolutionizing the financial industry and empowering the people of Nigeria to digitize their payments across the board. “We look forward to a bright future for the company and its customers.”

Ibrahim is a business manager with experience in digital payments, consumer channel development, market segmentation, cross-border remittances, and product management. His expertise spans the fintech, banking, oil and gas, and pharmaceutical industries.

He previously worked as General Manager for VigiPay at The Venture Garden Group, Africa’s largest technology holding company. At Vigipay, he managed the company’s cross-border payment platform, ensuring real-time termination into multiple corridors in Asia, Africa, and Europe.

He holds a Master’s in Business Administration and a Bachelor’s in Science from Obafemi Awolowo University. He is certified in fraud detection, prevention and control, and project management.

Commenting on his appointment, Ibrahim stated, “I am honored to join the team of innovative thinkers at Cellulant and am eager to bring my expertise to the table to enhance the payments landscape in the country.

I am confident that our efforts in increasing the quality of services and products we offer our customers will lead to greater financial inclusion, accessibility, and stability for all Nigerians.”

This appointment comes when Tingg by Cellulant, which offers a suite of digital payment solutions for businesses across Africa, has witnessed rapid adoption in Nigeria in the past year. For example, its proximity payments solution, Instore, has experienced 200% growth in the last 6 months alone.

Tingg is the payments partner for many Nigerian businesses, such as GIG Logistics, Perfect Trust Cosmetics, Simba Group, and Chicken Republic, and global companies such as Emirates, Bolt, and PepsiCo. The platform enables businesses across Nigeria—in the airline, QSR, e-commerce, ride-hailing, retail, and remittances sectors – to pay and get paid offline and online seamlessly.

The platform also enables businesses to easily keep track of transactions, reconcile accounts, and make timely payments. The payment gateway provides merchants with a snapshot of their business performance across multiple locations.

Head, SME Sales, Cellulant Nigeria, Ademola Okuleye, gave the assurance during an appearance on Arise TV’s Global Business Report while discussing using technology to improve Nigeria’s SMEs. 

Okuleye, who explained that adopting technology will help SMEs reduce operational costs and maximise profit, said Cellulant provides a secure, seamless payment and collection platform that allows them to focus on other business areas.  

He explained that technology has been a significant driver in improving the efficiency of SMEs in Nigeria in many areas such as power, human resources and payroll.  

“There are many ways technology through the use of software and apps readily available today is helping SMEs cut operational costs. If you look at power, renewable energy helps SMEs reduce power costs. Non-core staffing functions can be outsourced to existing apps for accounting, payroll and setting up meetings. There are many apps for communication, too, and that’s why the value of voice calls is reducing viz-a-viz data calls. You are here in Lagos but can set up meetings with customers in any part of the world. Technology improves your revenue because your cost of operation is reduced,” Okuleye said. 

He added that when it comes to payments, Cellulant is onboarding SMEs to resolve their payment and collection issues by directly providing solutions that enable them to collect payments or payout to their customers. 

“We have a platform that makes it easy for businesses to monitor transactions, reconcile and settle funds seamlessly. If you’re a CEO in Lagos and have several stores across the country, you can view all your business transactions on one dashboard. Easy access to your payments operations gives business leaders across Nigeria more time to do other things.”

On who is responsible for hastening the adoption of technology between the government and private sector, Okuleye said it’s a shared responsibility. 

“The government has a responsibility regarding regulations needed to make business easy for SMEs and infrastructure, which is the biggest problem we have in Nigeria and Africa. There’s also a huge burden on the private sector, which sells the products and needs to create awareness. The private sector can create forums and events where SME owners and proprietors can come together and gain a basic understanding of the technology.“

Cellulant provides locally relevant and alternative payment methods for global, regional, and local merchants across Africa. It has a physical presence in 18 countries and processes payments for businesses in 35 others. It offers a single API payments gateway called Tingg that enables companies to collect payments online and offline, delivering seamless payment experiences for their customers.

The award is a recognition of Cellulant’s work in providing a payments platform that focuses on driving merchant business and digital payments for local, regional and global merchants in the continent and digitizing both online and offline payments. 

Renowned businesses such as Emirates, GIG logistics, Coldstone, Bolt, Dominos and Ethiopian Airlines to name a few, have partnered with Cellulant to use its Tingg digital payments solution as a single collection gateway in Nigeria.

Simplifying its product, Cellulant unified its offering into Tingg – a digital payments platform that addresses the complex needs of managing different payment channels for a business. This has made it easy for businesses to conveniently and affordably accept payments from a single integration. Customers can make payments for goods and services using locally relevant payment options.

Founded in 2003, Cellulant has more than 18 years of experience providing locally-relevant payment solutions for businesses and its consumers. The company’s evolution over the years, from a digital content business to mobile banking and now to payments, has allowed the company to build an expansive network, strong relationships and partnerships.

The award was presented to Cellulant Nigeria by Communication Week Media Limited, the publisher of Nigeria Communications Week. The annual event recognizes leading players in the ICT sector in Nigeria whose outstanding achievements contribute to the industry’s growth. The theme of the Awards Ceremony was “Impact of Blockchain Technology in a Digitalized Nigeria”.

The company provides a unified, single-contract, and single API payments platform – named Tingg- that makes it easy for businesses to receive and make payments; while allowing anyone to pay from their mobile money, local and international cards, or directly from their bank.

Today, Cellulant has an office presence in 18 countries, including Nigeria, with a payments platform connecting thousands of businesses with 257 payment options across 35 countries. The platform powers payments for 200 million consumers on a single inclusive network for interoperability across Africa.

Speaking on the recognition, Opeyemi Fowler, Cellulant’s Head of Enterprise Sales stated:  “The digital payments landscape in Nigeria and Africa is evolving rapidly with differing payment channels such as card, mobile money, bank transfer and cash – with volatile currency fluctuations and no single settlement framework. This is creating a highly fragmented landscape for businesses whose customers increasingly request to pay for their purchases using digital payment options. Every day, our job at Cellulant is to work with our customers and partners to solve this fragmentation in payments.”

“This award is a testament to our work in providing a payments platform that is transforming the way people do business in Nigeria and beyond; and a reflection of the hard work done by our people.”