Connect with us

Fintech

Cellulant Gets Approval from Bank of Tanzania to Become a Payment Solution Service Provider (PSSP)

Published

on

Cellulant - Investors King

The Bank of Tanzania (BOT) has issued an approval in principle to Cellulant Corporation to operate as a Payment Solution Service Provider in Tanzania having satisfied all the necessary requirements.

Payment Solution Service Providers make up the underlying e-Payment infrastructure in Tanzania. Banks, Online Merchants, payment processors, merchants, state governments, and consumers connect to PSSPs to meet their digital payment needs.

This approval makes Cellulant one of the top Payment Solution Service Providers (PSSP) in Tanzania endorsed by the BOT to provide digital payments solutions across the nation.

Cellulant is a leading Pan-African financial technology company providing a one-stop digital payments platform. Cellulant uses technology to connect people and their resources, making it easier to do business across Africa.

Edwin Kiiru, recently appointed Country Manager for Cellulant Tanzania, stated that this approval will enable the company to extend its payment solutions across all spectrums of Tanzania’s payments ecosystem.

Cellulant provides a single digital payments platform – named Tingg- addressing the complex payments needs of businesses. Tingg makes it easy to collect and make payments across multiple payment methods in different currencies, with the best customer experience for any business looking to digitise their payments.

‘‘Cellulant is a critical component of Africa’s Payments ecosystem and a key actor in delivering seamless payments solutions. This approval sets Cellulant into a select group of few payment aggregators that operate as PSSPs in Tanzania and will help add millions of economically active but financially excluded Tanzanians into the digital payment ecosystem.  We are bringing to Tanzania the same top-level performance and seamless payments solutions that have made Tingg, Africa’s most preferred payments platform,” added Mr Kiiru.

Founded in 2002, Cellulant provides a single digital payments platform that runs an ecosystem of consumers, retailers, merchants, banks, mobile network operators, Governments, and International Development Partners. Today, Cellulant’s payments platform hosts 154 payment options across 34 countries; and is connected to 220M consumers on a single inclusive network allowing for interoperability that has eluded numerous players in the payments space.

Cellulant has an office presence in 18 African countries.

Is the CEO/Founder of Investors King Limited. A proven foreign exchange research analyst and a published author on Yahoo Finance, Businessinsider, Nasdaq, Entrepreneur.com, Investorplace, and many more. He has over two decades of experience in global financial markets.

Continue Reading
Comments

Fintech

African Fintech Kuda Raises $100M Despite Investment Challenges

Published

on

Kuda Microfinance Bank - Investors King

Kuda Technologies, a leading fintech company with operations in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, has successfully raised nearly $100 million in funding over the past five years.

This significant milestone was revealed by the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Babs Ogundeyi, during a panel session at the GITEX Africa conference in Morocco.

The GITEX Africa 2024 technology fair, which runs from May 29 to 31 in Marrakech, brings together over 1,500 exhibitors from 130 countries and nearly 700 startups.

During the event, Ogundeyi highlighted Kuda’s growth journey and the difficulties African fintech startups face in attracting foreign investment.

“We launched in Nigeria in August 2019 and have raised close to $100 million within that period,” Ogundeyi announced during the panel session titled “Beyond the Starting Lane: Navigating Advanced Funding.”

The session also featured prominent figures such as Sacha Michaud, co-founder of Glovo in Spain; Yassine Oussaifi, partner at Africinvest Tunisia; and Katlego Maphai, CEO of Yoco South Africa.

The discussion centered on the challenges and strategies for securing advanced funding for startups.

Ogundeyi emphasized that African startups often struggle to secure foreign investment due to investors’ unfamiliarity with the local market environment.

To mitigate this, Kuda Technologies established its headquarters in the UK, facilitating easier access to funding from Western investors.

“We are headquartered in the UK, but we are Africa-focused, and there is a reason why we are headquartered in the UK. It’s very much related to access to funding. The capital comes primarily from the west. It’s easier to attract capital in those jurisdictions,” Ogundeyi explained.

He stressed that securing funding is a rigorous process, particularly in Africa, where trust levels are low.

“When we raised our seed funding, the majority of investors had not been to Africa before, making it difficult to connect with something they didn’t understand. It goes beyond investors seeing the numbers or potential; if you don’t have a feel for the environment or understand the psyche of the people, it becomes very difficult to connect resources to that region,” Ogundeyi elaborated.

Despite the challenges, Kuda Technologies has made significant strides. Its subsidiary, Kuda Microfinance Bank in Nigeria, has grown its customer base to 7.5 million users, making it one of the largest fintech companies in Africa.

The company’s expansion strategy includes obtaining licenses in Canada and Tanzania, reflecting its vision of global reach.

Ogundeyi’s insights were echoed by Sacha Michaud, who noted that venture capitalists tend to invest in regions where they feel comfortable.

“We launched in Africa six years ago and were in high funding mode. In every funding round, we had to convince our investors why we were focusing on the region when we could invest our resources in higher-return areas like Europe,” Michaud shared.

Continue Reading

Fintech

Flutterwave Hit by Another Security Breach, Billions of Naira Diverted to Multiple Bank Accounts

Published

on

Flutterwave - Investors King

In another blow to the financial technology sector, Flutterwave, a prominent player in Nigeria’s digital payment landscape, has been rocked by yet another security breach, resulting in the diversion of billions of naira to multiple undisclosed bank accounts.

This incident is the latest in a series of setbacks for the fintech company, raising concerns about the integrity of its systems and the safety of customer funds.

According to insider sources familiar with the matter, unauthorized transactions amounting to approximately ₦11 billion ($7 million) were illicitly transferred to several accounts during April 2024.

However, other sources suggest the figure could be as high as ₦20 billion ($13.5 million), underscoring the magnitude of the breach.

Flutterwave, responding to inquiries regarding the breach, acknowledged the unauthorized activities but stopped short of confirming the exact amount involved.

In a statement to TechCabal, the company assured the public that no customer funds were lost or compromised, and the confidentiality of customer data remained intact.

The modus operandi of the perpetrators involved transferring the stolen funds to various accounts across five financial institutions over a span of four days.

To evade detection, the transactions were carefully orchestrated to stay below thresholds that trigger fraud checks, highlighting the sophistication of the operation.

Law enforcement agencies have been notified of the breach, and investigations are underway to apprehend those responsible.

Flutterwave has also initiated measures to mitigate the impact of the incident, including temporarily restricting the accounts implicated in the unauthorized transfers.

Industry analysts note that this is not the first time Flutterwave has fallen victim to such security breaches. Over the past fourteen months, the company has grappled with multiple incidents of unauthorized transfers, raising serious concerns about the adequacy of its cybersecurity measures.

In October 2023, Flutterwave reported unauthorized transactions totaling ₦19 billion ($24 million), affecting thousands of account holders across 35 banks and financial institutions.

Subsequent breaches in March and February 2023 saw millions of naira diverted to numerous bank accounts, further exposing vulnerabilities in the company’s systems.

Continue Reading

Fintech

Moniepoint Inc Moniepoint Inc Named Africa’s Fastest-Growing Financial Institution by Financial Times

Published

on

Moniepoint

Moniepoint Inc, parent company of Nigeria’s leading financial institutions, Moniepoint MFB and TeamApt Ltd has been ranked by the Financial Times, one of the world’s leading business news organizations, recognized internationally for its authority, integrity, and accuracy as Africa’s fastest-growing financial institution.

The world’s leading financial publication confirmed Moniepoint Inc’s accolade in its annual “Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies” survey, released today. It is the second consecutive year Moniepoint has achieved both the fastest-growing fintech milestone, and, ranked in Africa’s top four fastest-growing companies overall.

The survey was compiled by Statista, a leading research company renowned for its insight into African companies’ actual performance, in a rigorous screening process. In this survey, companies are ranked based on 2019-2022 data by their absolute growth rate of revenues and their compound annual growth rate (CAGR). Moniepoint’s growth rates of 7,979% (absolute) and 332% (CAGR) ranked it ahead of hundreds of leading companies from diverse industries such as technology, telecoms, financial services, and healthcare.

Moniepoint Inc has long been one of Africa’s largest business payments platforms, processing over $182 billion for customers in 2023. It will be recalled that in August 2023, Moniepoint MFB entered the personal banking market offering reliable banking services to millions of individuals across Nigeria.  The holding group also doubled its global headcount, growing to over 1,800 employees by the end of 2023.

This recognition highlights Moniepoint’s success as Africa’s leading fintech, driving financial inclusion by empowering underserved businesses and individuals to access the formal financial system, contributing to a key goal of the Nigerian government.

Tosin Eniolorunda, Group CEO of Moniepoint Inc., said: “We are thrilled to be recognised by the Financial Times as Africa’s fastest growing fintech for the second consecutive year. Achieving rapid growth and scale is a fantastic achievement; maintaining that year-on-year is even better. The ranking is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the entire Moniepoint team, and the trust of millions of customers across Africa in the Company.

“2023 was a pivotal year for Moniepoint. Moniepoint has moved from being an agency-dominated institution to becoming merchant-dominated as we have seen a lot more people embrace more digital payment solutions. It is humbling to see that we have become a household name that people have come to know and trust, the bellwether for reliable transactions every time.

With our foray into the personal banking market, we have been able to deliver seamless and reliable payment solutions for Nigerians especially those in underserved communities as we continue to supercharge access to financial services and contribute to economic growth and wealth creation.  2024 is set to be even more exciting with continued growth, driving compliance and innovation, as we maintain our leading role within the African fintech sector, driving financial inclusion across Africa.”

According to David Pilling, FT Africa Editor, “The third year of our now expanded ranking of Africa’s Fastest Growing Companies comes against a background in which many economies are struggling to recover from the Covid pandemic. The FT-Statista list reveals the type of companies that, even in hard times, have managed to grow, often by disrupting markets…This year, our ranking has a wider geographical spread of companies than before. The big newcomer is Morocco, with 12 companies in the top 125 against just three last time. Mauritian-domiciled companies also did well with nine winners, against four in 2022. South Africa had 42 companies in the list, followed by Nigeria’s 25, while Kenya tied third at 12.”

Moniepoint Inc.’s technology powers over five million businesses and their customers, offering all the payment, banking, credit and business management tools they need to succeed.  Establishing itself as a market leader in Nigeria across various segments from commerce to health and hospitality amongst many others, Moniepoint’s transformational and positive strides has earned it local and international plaudits.

In 2023, for the second year running, Moniepoint Inc was named amongst the 100 most promising private fintech companies by CB Insights. Moniepoint MFB received the Rising Star Family Business Award at the Pwc/Businessday Family Business Summit; while bagging the Fintech Company of the Year award at the 16th edition of Leadership Newspapers Conference and Awards.

Industry analysts have averred that as a strongly embedded and systemic institution in the digital payment services segment, with an eye on the future, Moniepoint Inc is poised to continue to deliver innovative solutions that promote inclusivity, drive sustainability and create new vistas in the markets where they operate.

Continue Reading
Advertisement




Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Trending