Copia Global Partners with Cellulant to Enable Payments for its Diaspora and Urban Customers

B2C e-commerce platform, Copia Global has entered into a partnership with Cellulant, a Pan-African Payments technology company to simplify payments for its diaspora and urban customers. 

The partnership will enable Copia’s diaspora and urban customers to conveniently initiate transactions and purchases for their loved ones in rural areas in Kenya using the Cellulant network. This provides greater choice, affordability, and convenience for both urban and rural shoppers when shopping for everyday items. 

Speaking on the partnership, Tim Steel, Chief Executive Officer, Copia Global said, “We are deeply committed to simplifying e-commerce in Africa and are excited to collaborate with Cellulant in expanding Copia’s market reach. This will enable us to provide diaspora and urban customers with alternative and convenient payment options when they shop on Copia’s platform for friends and family across Kenya and Uganda.”

Remittance inflows to Kenya have increased tenfold in the last fifteen years, reaching an all-time high of 3.72 million dollars in 2021, according to the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK). For many Kenyans as in many African nations, digital payments made by diasporans to rural families provide a financial lifeline to millions of households. Diasporans and people living in urban areas can use Copia’s online platform to pay for goods and have them delivered to friends and family back home. 

“We are delighted to be Copia’s payments technology partner enabling consumers in the diaspora to make purchases seamlessly. As the African e-commerce and payments landscape in Africa continues to evolve, we believe that fintechs and e-commerce platforms need to have a deeper collaboration in expanding opportunities that will help ease payments and collections for businesses and their consumers across all sectors of the economy”, said Akshay Grover, Chief Executive Officer Cellulant.

In recent years, Cellulant has led the charge in simplifying payments for a wide range of businesses in various sectors such as airlines, telecoms, e-commerce platforms, and ride-hailing companies among others processing about USD 14 billion in 2021 alone. 

Cellulant provides a single digital payments platform – named Tingg– that addresses 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 digitize its payments.

Copia Global combines mobile technology, over 40,000 digitally enabled local agents, and an innovative last-mile logistics system to provide a broad product offering efficient, reliable delivery to rural consumers. The streamlined process enables customers to simply provide the phone number of a friend or family member at checkout and Copia will do the rest, including locating the recipient, identifying the nearest delivery centre agent, and delivering the goods.