A new partnership announced this week between Pipit Global and Cellulant promises to provide Africans living abroad with a cheaper option to send money back home.
The agreement allows people in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mali, Senegal, and Ghana to transact on Pipit Global at lower rates due to the deal with Cellulant, a pan-African digital payments platform. Africans living in the EU and UK who originate from any of the listed African countries can send cash, add to an e-wallet, pay bills and have e-commerce items shipped to Africa. The service can be used from any of 28,000 PayPoint network cash acceptance points in the UK or 35,000 in the western EU.
“Going live in these countries is a big step forward for intra-African remittances,” Pipit CEO Ollie Walsh said. “Seventy per cent of Africans who migrate stay on the continent of Africa where the cost of sending money home across African borders is much higher than the fees for sending cash home from the EU – and can reach 20 per cent in some corridors. Pipit, along with Cellulant, can now solve this problem by making it cheaper and safer for migrants to send cash to their families at home.”
‘’We believe that for Africans to thrive, we need to purposefully create bridges that lessen the geographical, wealth and social gaps and link communities and their resources with others,” Cellulant CBO David Waithaka added. “Cellulant using technology to build new types of networks that connect those who have goods and services with those who need them. We are happy to extend our digital payments platform- Tingg, and support Pipit’s work in connecting the African diaspora with low-cost payment solutions that allow them to support their families in the continent.”
Pipit is adding 620,000 cash collection points in Nigeria.
“We are building a global network of payment partners who recognize that for a growing segment of our society, cash is the main means of managing their finances,” Walsh said. “Together we are building the technology to allow them to use their cash in the digital marketplace in increasingly secure and cost-effective ways. We expect to keep growing as more customers trust the platform and enjoy the lower costs of sending money back home.”