Cellulant granted a Payment Service Provider Authorisation by Central Bank of Kenya

By Edlyn Cardoza

Central Bank of Kenya has granted Cellulant a Payment Service Provider authorisation in Kenya, enabling the company to expand its payments offering for businesses, banks, and consumers.

Founded in 2003, Cellulant is among the pioneer Financial Technology (FinTech) companies in Kenya and Africa 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 to collect payments online and offline while allowing anyone to 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, a leading payments company in Africa, 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.”

IBS Intelligence reported that International cash payments platform Pipit Global and Cellulant have extended their partnership agreement to now include eighteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.