Pipit Global, a cash payments platform, has extended its partnership agreement with pan-African payments company Cellulant to include eighteen countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The expansion into the new markets comes just 5 months after the two companies announced a partnership to enable remittances in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mali, Senegal, and Ghana at lower rates.
The partnership will see the companies providing both B2B and B2C payments services to existing and emergent financial institutions. This includes eCommerce merchants, billers and billing platforms, mobile money providers and eWallets, digital financial service providers, and their customers.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, remittances into sub-Saharan Africa and intraregional SSA remittances have remained resilient. According to figures from the World Bank there was a modest decline of 1.4% in flows into SSA in 2020, this figure excludes the exceptional case of Nigeria where economic factors beyond the pandemic affected remittances significantly. However, the cost of remittances into Africa and intra-African remittances remains a significant challenge, a burden on senders and receivers, and a barrier to development. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to have the highest average international remittance costs at 8.2%.
Pipit’s and Cellulant’s partnership will see the development of purposeful remittances. This model ensures that bills are paid, and removes the potential for leakage where remitted money may not be used for its intended purpose. It also reduces the receiver risk associated with cash collection. In line with the goal to reduce remittance costs, the direct-to-biller model applies fees significantly lower than traditional remittance prices resulting in meaningful savings for remittance senders and receivers.
Commenting on the partnership, Pipit Global CEO Ollie Walsh said, “Pipit Global was founded on the basis of promoting collaboration in the world of payments. Making cash a core element of the digital economy, whilst maintaining that cash economy and giving the ability to transition between the two, gives real parity and freedom, and ultimately creates the social impact that drives global development and equality.”