Cellulant, the pan-African payments group has unified Tinng to roll out digital payments for SMEs and large businesses in Nigeria in a bid to help them go cashless and reach more customers. 

Tingg- a digital payments platform enabling businesses to seamlessly accept payments from their customers conveniently and affordably. The platform helps merchants accept payments with fewer hoops allowing customers to make payments for goods and services using locally relevant payment options. 

According to the firm, some of the merchants it’s working with include StarTimes, Ethiopia Airlines, Kenya Airways among others. More than 70% of businesses in Africa are small or medium businesses and, 90% of these businesses collect payments in cash and lack digital payments options that cater to their customers. For example, in Nigeria, small and medium enterprises contribute roughly 48% of GDP, yet many lack digital tools for transactions. 

A single integrated solution, Tingg addresses the complex needs of managing payments for a business by making it easy to collect and make payments with the best customer experience. Tingg aims to boost growth for businesses by standardising the payment experience for the end-user and simplifies the tools and processes for a merchant to manage their collections.

While the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc on African economies, this crisis has also become the single most significant catalyst for a digital transformation. For all businesses – small, medium, large- digitising has moved from a good to have to a game-changer in what has become the new norm.

Solving for Payment Fragmentation 

Mobile money adoption has increased rapidly over recent years, especially in markets where most of the population remains unbanked. According to Statista, in 2020, 10% of digital payments in Nigeria were transacted through e-wallets. In addition, NIBBSS recorded that Nigerian merchants and mobile money operators processed over 655 million Point-of-Sale (POS) transactions valued at ₦4.7 trillion ($13 billion) in 2020. This presents a 50% increase from the previous year. 

Nigerian consumers have different payment options, including card, mobile money, bank transfer and cash- with volatile currency fluctuations and no single settlement framework. Furthermore, the demand for digital payments continues to increase. Today, roughly  50% of retail customers request to pay for their purchases using digital payment options. However, this demand presents several challenges for most merchants who might not always support the customer’s preferred payment method, resulting in merchants having to enable multiple solutions to support multiple wallets. In addition, multiple payment methods mean having to manage various merchant tools, accounts, and varying processes for settlement and reversals for a merchant. 

Tingg solves this fragmentation challenge by focusing on delivering a graceful user experience for the merchant and their customer and provide;- 

• One solution to accept all digital payment methods (Bank Transfers, USSD payments & Mobile Money)
• One portal to view payments received from multiple payment methods
• A single settlement from multiple payment sources that is automated 
• A simplified reconciliation and dispute management tools

With a proper payments infrastructure led by Cellulant, especially powering both small and large businesses across all industries, Nigeria’s economy will be able to recover and thrive from the impact of Covid and overall market fluctuations.  Therefore, as the customers continue to demand for better payment experiences, businesses need all the support that payment providers such a Cellulant can offer to promote sustainable economic growth. 

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