Lake Harvest joins the Tingg digital payment ecosystem

By Edlyn Cardoza

Cellulant, a leading Pan-African payments company, has partnered with one of Zambia’s leading fish distributors, Lake Harvest, to enable mobile payments in all their outlets through the Tingg one-stop digital payment platform.

As consumer purchasing habits evolve, Lake Harvest has emphasised accepting all forms of mobile money to give its customers a seamless payment experience. Lake Harvest highlighted that this was necessitated by demand from their customers, who kept requesting easier ways to pay for their goods that didn’t involve the hassle of withdrawing cash from their mobile money network.

This partnership will place Cellulant’s payment platform, Tingg, in all 13 Lake Harvest outlets across Zambia and ensure they can accept all forms of mobile money. Customers will pay seamlessly by simply dialling a short code accessible on any phone.

This partnership is in line with Cellulant’s aim to break the fragmentation in the payments landscape. It has rolled out Tingg to major stores across the country, placing it at the forefront of the digital payments revolution in Zambia.

The Country Manager of Cellulant Zambia, Gilbert Lungu, said that “a major distributor like Lake Harvest joining the Tingg ecosystem, supports the growing trend of an increase in the use of digital payments over traditional payment methods.”

Speaking to the role of digital payments in accelerating business success, he added, “ Platforms like Tingg solve for cash management issues while offering better reconciliation and settlement options for businesses. This enables them to focus on providing better services and improve customer convenience.”

The uptake in digital payments in Zambia has been accelerated by the government’s push to reduce cash handling by encouraging contactless payments as a safer method in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions in the country. The value of mobile payments as reported by the Bank of Zambia in June 2021 stood at K76.6 billion and showed a sustained upward trajectory compared to June 2020, which was at K43.1 billion.

The cashless preference is not the preserve of regulatory authorities only as the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a new trend; more consumers realise that they want to use cash a lot less. Through regulators, the Zambian government continues to echo this, as more than ever, mobile money wallets are a popular form of storing value but have limited shops and distribution centres accepting it.

The Lake Harvest General Manager, Steven Chidove, says they observed that “Since going live with this Tingg, we’ve noted that customers are expressing pleasure in having this simplified way of paying. It’s clear that this improves their customer experience when they visit our shops by reducing the morning queues at distribution points during high traffic times.”

In the long run, this partnership is a key step in facilitating business transactions that use technology to make doing business easier across the country whilst uplifting the lives of citizens. The Finscope 2020 in Zambia study accelerates mobile money use, which reported a 44.5% growth in users over a five-year period to stand at 58.5% of adults. These users now require access points to directly use mobile money where they shop every day.

This is at the heart of Cellulant’s work of enabling seamless payments for businesses and consumers across Africa. The payments company integrates digital payments in 35 countries and works with over 2000 merchants unlocking opportunities for millions of consumers.

Recently, IBS Intelligence reported that Jambojet has partnered with Cellulant, a leading Pan-African payments company, to reward Jambojet customers with discount vouchers as they book flights ahead of the festive season. Passengers will be expected to apply the voucher number on the payment page on the Jambojet website, and Kes.1000 will be deducted from the amount due. The passenger will then pay for the balance using mobile money or the bank apps available on Tingg, which Cellulant powers.