Orange Money, the mobile money service of Orange, and the leading Pan-African payments company, Cellulant, have announced a new partnership to enable card-to-wallet transfers for eight banks in Botswana.
The Orange Money Card-To-Wallet service in Botswana enables customers to transfer money online from any bank account to an Orange Money wallet.
The Orange Money Card-To-Wallet service is available to all Orange Botswana customers with bank accounts, allowing them to instantly send money to any Orange Money wallet regardless of who they bank with.
The sender does not need an Orange Money account; they are only required to have a registered Orange sim card, while the recipient needs an Orange Money wallet.
This partnership enables customers to move funds straight into their Orange Money wallets from their bank accounts through their cards.
While most banks in Botswana have mobile apps, a few still do not provide this option for their customers. This solution will now allow bank customers to move money from their bank accounts to their Orange Money wallets through the Orange Botswana website, a process powered by Tingg. This applies to both the banks that have apps and those that do not.
“The introduction of Card-To-Wallet aligns with our financial inclusion strategy that is centered around providing relevant and convenient solutions that address our customers’ everyday needs, as well as addressing our priorities around placing our customers first,” said Orange Money CEO, Seabelo Pilane.
Customers can also buy airtime and access other mobile network operator services using their Visa, MasterCard debit, or credit cards through Tingg.
Tingg is a one-stop payment aggregator that enables merchants to receive, view, service, and reconcile payments via a single platform.
“We are pleased to partner with Orange Money Botswana to power payments for their Card-to-Wallet service. This is in line with our strategy to extend our services to merchants in Botswana with the aim of helping them digitize their payments,” added Cellulant Botswana country manager Bathusi Beleme.
Read: FinTech Cellulant and NALA Release Platform for Cross-Border Payments in Africa
Cellulant foretold collaborations
Cellulant Nigeria has recently disclosed its view on partnership and plans to engage in collaboration. The organization says it sees a bright future for payments in Africa and that collaboration, rather than competition, will drive it forward.
The Head of SME Sales at Cellulant Nigeria, Ademola Okuleye, who said this during an appearance on Arise TV’s Global Business Report, noted that though there are several fintech companies in Africa’s payment space alongside Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), cooperation, not competition, will drive the market’s growth.
Okuleye said, “The outlook for payment is very bright, especially in today’s world where more fintech companies are rising to solve different problems for businesses and consumers in specific sectors and verticals.” This means that the payment space is becoming more competitive, which also presents a great opportunity for collaboration.
“Our take is that we need each other to support the market fully; we need each other.” You can see this by the types of partners we have, such as our partnership with UBA Group to simplify payment experiences for their We also partnered with Grey Finance.
“One of the benefits of technology is that Nigerians can work remotely for companies in other countries. Because of this, we partnered with Grey Finance, which lets anyone who signs up open and manage a virtual foreign bank account.”
On the dominance of telcos in the payment space, Okuleye reiterated that they are not competitors but collaborators who will help expand broadband penetration useful for fintech.
“There is room for everybody to operate. We do not see their coming into the digital payment space as a threat. We see it as an opportunity because to get the best out of the system. They need to get access to the internet in places where the current penetration is low. So, it’s good for everybody. Once they get internet access in those places, we will also have access to such subscribers and customers, “he said.
Okuleye also said that getting broadband access in rural areas would help fintech and small and medium-sized businesses, which are very important to Nigeria’s economy. Okuleye said that even though Nigerians don’t use the internet much, Cellulant makes it easy for them to pay through its offline channels.
According to him, once there’s a higher degree of broadband penetration, life would be easier for “payment companies and SMEs that are the heartbeat of business.”
Okuleye said that even though Nigerians don’t use the internet much, Cellulant makes it easy for them to pay through its offline channels. Nigerians use our products across the country despite low internet penetration because of our offline options. have large enterprise customers with 300 to 400 outlets across the 36 states using the offline options,” he said.
Cellulant is a leading pan-African payments technology company founded on a deep belief in the power of building a payments ecosystem that creates seamless interoperability across the continent.
The rise of mobile money
There has been a massive push for mobile money services in Africa, and the partnership will continue to cement Orange’s footprint on the continent. Orange has more than 130 million customers in the Middle East and Africa, where it works in 18 countries.
Neighbouring South Africa’s telecom operators have started offering progressively more mobile financial services solutions to customers, including a trend of new lending products in the market.
Safaricom’s M-Pesa service just started offering a Visa virtual card that lets people pay without cash at merchant locations in more than 200 countries. This is possible because Visa has a global network.
