The Mastercard virtual payment solution, linked to Cellulant’s payment gateway – Tingg, can unlock a host of opportunities for consumers, whether they have a bank account or not. Consumers will be able to shop from well-known global digital commerce brands, paying quickly and securely for leisure shopping, travel, accommodation, entertainment, streaming services and more, while in their home countries or travelling abroad. 

The announcement comes as digital commerce and online shopping is thriving across Africa and the need for safer means of shopping online increases. According to the Economy 2021 Outlook conducted by the Mastercard Economics Institute, 20-30% of the COVID-19-related surge in digital commerce will remain a permanent feature of overall retail spending, and shopping through mobile is largely how consumers access these opportunities.

Across Sub-Saharan Africa, mobile devices are the primary channel used to connect to the internet. According to GSMA, smartphone connections are expected to reach 678 million in 2025, with a penetration of 65%.

As a result, alternative payment methods driven by mobile payments have increasingly begun to dominate the digital payments landscape. Consequently, consumers increasingly expect access to a broader range of online offers and digital financial services.

The majority of these consumers obtain goods and services from micro, small and medium-sized businesses. Africa today has about a 100 million MSMEs but less than 5% of their transactions are digitized.

For these businesses, virtual cards offer a compelling path to digitization with added benefits such as tracking, reconciliation and quick settlement of day-to-day payments, better management of customer and supplier relationships and minimized fraud risk all without sacrificing operational speed. Taking advantage of these opens up paths for growth through value chain financing and ease in raising working capital.

Mastercard is collaborating with partners to build a strong digital economy that can unlock a world beyond cash where everyone thrives. The partnership with Cellulant plays a role in advancing Mastercard’s worldwide commitment to financial inclusion to bring a total of 1 billion people, and 50 million micro and small businesses into the digital economy by 2025.

“Mastercard’s technology enables our digital partners to redefine their consumer’s digital commerce interactions and experiences. By focusing on the provision of multi-use, omnichannel digital payment solutions, Mastercard is enabling its partners, such as Cellulant, to improve their operational efficiency, diversify their revenue, and transition seamlessly into digital commerce. We see the increasing proliferation of fintechs as a strategic opportunity to add value by creating more connections, better user experiences and greater choice for consumers,” said Amnah Ajmal, Executive Vice President, Market Development, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Mastercard.

“We believe seamless payment experiences are the backbone for accelerating economic growth across Africa. MSMEs are the driving force for Africa’s economy and our work in digitising payments for businesses and their consumers enables the requisite foundation for innovation, economic development and financial inclusion. By partnering with Mastercard, we are looking to further open up pathways that effectively position our customers for the growth they need,” said David Waithaka, Chief Revenue Officer, Cellulant Group.

Over the last 18 years, Cellulant has built an extensive and unparalleled payments platform that provides local, regional and global businesses with a one-stop-shop payment solution offering a frictionless payment experience for their needs across the continent. Covering 35 countries across Africa with about 300 payment integrations, Cellulant helps stitch together the fabric of Africa’s commercial landscape making interoperability possible.

Just four months ago, Grey got accepted into Y Combinator’s 2022 winter batch for startups. Same period, it rebranded its identity, changing both its name, interface and logo to serve a much bigger mission.

On the other hand, Cellulant has been on a continuous mission to increase the innovations in making cross-border payments simpler and more decentralized. Through several recent partnerships, the company is gradually achieving its objectives.

In line with this, Grey’s partnership with Cellulant enables its launch in East Africa, spreading its products such as foreign bank accounts, instant currency exchange, and international money transfers, to Kenyans who sign up on Grey.

Kenyans can now get paid in their preferred foreign currency and withdraw directly to M-Pesa or their local bank account. Also, travellers going to Nairobi can convert any supported currency to Kenyan Shillings, pay for services directly to M-Pesa, or withdraw to a local bank account.

Grey offers a unique international money transfer service that enables its users to send and receive international payments without restrictions quickly. Cellulant is the company’s payments processor powering its payouts to thousands of Grey’s customers.

The instant currency exchange service offered by Grey enables its customers to have virtual international bank accounts for free, helping small businesses, freelancers, remote workers, and content creators in Kenya to enjoy a seamless payment process.

The endeavours by African fintech companies are rapidly enhancing the continuously growing digital environment where individuals now get remote jobs to work with countries other than theirs wherever they are. Processes like salary payments and other operations can now become simpler for all.

Grey was founded in 2020 by Idorenyin Obong and Femi Aghedo to make international transactions seamless, starting with Nigeria.

“For us at Grey, it is beyond just building remittance solutions. We sincerely want to enhance the interconnectivity of the evolving gig economy in developing countries; improving how we deal with cross-border remittance is just one way. Our team includes some of the brightest minds from diverse backgrounds working together to build solutions that delight our users,” Grey wrote.

Founded in 2003, Cellulant is among the pioneer Financial Technology (fintech) Companies in Kenya and Africa at large and has a history of driving innovation through creative technical solutions delivered with a streamlined user experience. 

Over the last decade, the company has evolved in its payments solutions, from mobile banking services to offering a full-stack one-stop-shop payments platform for global, regional and local businesses.

The authorisation permits Cellulant to continue enabling businesses collect payments online and offline, while allowing anyone pay from their mobile money, local and international cards or directly from their bank.

“As the payments industry has evolved globally, we are fortunate that the Central Bank of Kenya has provided a regulatory framework and environment that has allowed companies such as Cellulant to operate while adhering to the highest standards in providing payment solutions to businesses and their users. This authorisation will enable us to continue serving our customers better with guaranteed secure and regulated conditions for us to facilitate payments,” said Faith Nkatha, Cellulant’s country manager in Kenya.

Cellulant has partnerships with 45 of the largest mobile money operators and 210 banks across Africa and has a converged payments ecosystem that brings together a network of banks, businesses, mobile network operators and consumers. 

The company provides its services in 35 countries across Africa, including Ghana, Botswana, Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa, offering the largest and most connected payments network on the continent.

Commenting on the state of the payments ecosystem in Africa, David Waithaka, group chief revenue officer at Cellulant, said: “A connected payment network is integral to the prosperity of businesses in Kenya and Africa at large. Because of the industry’s fragmentation, most businesses are forced to integrate multiple payment providers simply to operate on a day-to-day basis. For Cellulant, simplifying the payment experience and providing merchant tools to manage all their payments  frees businesses to focus on their growth and consequently create opportunities that accelerate growth for all.”