In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, the mobile money wave that has hit the continent with its genesis in East Africa, is finally causing huge ripples in the continents largest economy.
Last year, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) released a statement indicating that they will be allowing mobile network operators to operate mobile money services. CBN had previously blocked network operators from getting licenses to move money for customers without using a bank.
Although fintech companies such as Cellulant Nigeria have had the license to provide financial services since 2012, this move by the regulator to open up space to mobile network operators will not only bring co-opetation, it also has the potential to benefit the more than 50 million adults still without a bank account.
A New Kind of Banking & Paying
With this move by the regulator, more Nigerians can now carry out peer to peer mobile cash transfers as well as access other mobile money services without the need to have a bank account. Last year, Cellulant Nigeria Limited was granted a license to operate as a Payment Solution Service Provider. In addition to offering mobile money services, this recent licensing has enabled us to increase our financial services offering to include the collection of government funds and disbursement of subsidies to farmers and farming traders through our marketplace solution.
With a population of 200 million, eighty million adult Nigerians do not have bank accounts yet 142 million have mobile phones, Tingg has become the new way of banking for the many in the rural without access to formal banking services and, to urban dwellers, an easier, safer and faster way the making payments to collect digital payments, send and receive money at a low cost, using various channels as well as a marketplace for traders to grow their business through easy access to financial services, markets, and extra revenues.
To consumers, traders and corporations in Africa who are looking for a better way to monitor their money, access markets and grow, Tingg is a simple & secure digital payment & commerce platform that enables people and businesses, in urban as well as in rural areas, to trade, pay & get paid, send & receive money, save and grow. That is because Tingg is connected to people and communities and gives them easy access to market and financial services.
Introducing Tingg, Cellulant’s payment service solution
Tingg is a channel payments solution powered by Cellulant that connects people and businesses to markets, payments and financial services in urban as well as in rural areas. For consumer-traders and corporations in Africa, Tingg offers a simple, reliable and secure way to access markets, payments and financial services anytime anywhere.
In Nigeria, Cellulant has been rolling out the Tingg Pay, Tingg Neighborhood Bankers Service (Tingg NBS) and Tingg Marketplace- innovative mobile powered financial services that provide solutions to three market segments; Consumers, corporates & governments and traders. Businesses, banks, and government agencies are leverage on the Tingg marketplace solution to perform the last mile payment for farmers and the unbanked in the rural areas.
Tingg Pay
To consumers in the urban areas, Tingg Pay connects everyone to everything, every day giving them the ability to access their money whenever they need, to transact with friends, family, community and the ability to control their spending. This means less cumbersome transactions & less stressful interactions with businesses.
Tingg Financial Services & Neighborhood Banking
Under Tingg Financial Services, we have the Tingg Neighborhood Banking (Tingg NBS) – a community banking service point where customers can open an e-wallet account from which they can save, send and receive money, make payments. Neighborhood banking is a product conceptualized by Cellulant Nigeria to provide access to financial services in the country’s quest to achieve an 80% financial inclusion by 2020. Although Tingg NBS is similar to agency banking in terms of the financial services offered (deposits, withdrawals, transferring money, payments and checking the balance), what distinguishes neighborhood banking from agency banking is that it does not require one to have a bank account. Instead, one gets a mobile wallet through which they can access basic financial services.
Tingg Marketplace
Tingg Marketplace is a platform for traders targeted mainly at Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to receive payments & promote their business all on the same platform. Farmers, traders can use Tingg marketplace to disburse funds or e-vouchers, collect donations from partners, track expenditure and monitor disbursement processes from one end to another.
Tingg Marketplace powers Agrikore
One of our biggest projects in Nigeria is the innovation we build impacting agritech and the way farmers accessed government subsidies. Having obtained a license from the Central Bank of Nigeria to operate a mobile payments’ scheme in 2012, Cellulant took to market one of the largest-scale uses of mobile commerce to drive sector transformation by rolling out an e-wallet for the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The solution was dubbed the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) Scheme and it has since powered more than one billion dollars in subsidy payments to more than 17m farmers. This eWallet which grew to become Agrikore – a blockchain based CRM tool which organizes the agricultural value chain. Tingg Marketplace now powers the payments for Agrikore.
Agrikore has also been adopted by other countries such as Liberia and most recently Afghanistan.
What the future holds for payments in Nigeria
Despite having to contend with the slow regulatory framework in adopting policies that favor the acceleration of Financial Technology solutions in Nigeria, mobile money has finally taken off. This move to open up space to non- financial service providers such as Cellulant, mobile operators and other Fintech players is the catalyst to a payments revolution at a grand scale. This is an opportune time for us as we realize our vision of becoming a leader in the payments space in Africa.