UBA extends payment services in Africa in new partnership

Africa’s global bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, and leading Pan-African Payments Company Cellulant have announced a partnership that will extend payment services for merchants and consumers across 19 key African countries in which UBA operates.

These countries include Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Republic of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Senegal.

This network represents one of the primary tools in bringing together Africa’s fragmented payments ecosystem, ensuring Cellulant’s Payment Gateway, Tingg, is available to a vast number of merchants and consumers in each of these markets.

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Already over US$10bn in gross value payments are processed by Cellulant across the shared markets – and this partnership has the scope to expand the numbers significantly.

“We are delighted to welcome the United Bank for Africa as a new banking partner,” says Akshay Grover, Group CEO at Cellulant. “As the payments landscape in Africa continues to evolve, we believe that FinTech’s and banks need to have a deeper collaboration in expanding opportunities that will help ease payments & collections for businesses and their consumers across all sectors of the economy.”

“The partnership with UBA extends our unparalleled reach across the continent and gives merchants and consumers in our shared network the opportunity to enjoy streamlined digital payments services directly through their bank.”

Speaking on the partnership, Group Deputy Managing Director, United Bank for Africa, Oliver Alawuba, said: ‘We are happy to welcome Cellulant to Nigeria for this MoU signing and most importantly into UBA’s expansive landscape. UBA is ready; we are indeed set to dominate the entire digital banking space in Africa.

“Our bank, as you know, is one of the largest financial services institutions in Africa, providing services to over 25 million customers in 23 countries 20 of which are on the African continent. This speaks to our strength and capability in terms of delivering innovative digital solutions to the last mile”.

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He continued, “As the needs of our customers change, we are consistently adapting innovative solutions and partnerships to provide them with excellent and convenient services. With our strategic partnerships, we can accelerate the drive for financial inclusion and economic wellbeing of Africans on the continent. As a customer focused bank we are dedicated to ensuring first rate customer service to all our customers as well as fashion out the best possible ways to ease the way they transact”.