B2B Platform Solv Kenya and Cellulant Offer Payment and Collection Services

Pan-African payments provider Cellulant and B2B digital platform Solv Kenya have partnered to enable small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to reconcile, receive and view all their payments in one place and while on the go.

With the partnership, SMBs using Solv Kenya’s platform can access Cellulant’s digital payment and collections services, the companies said Wednesday (Nov. 16) in a press release.

“Processing and tracking transactions has historically been a problem for many small businesses, and financial institutions have to deal with this gap,” Solv Kenya CEO Sheila Kimani-Omukuba said in the release. “This partnership gives us the chance to handle financial services more quickly and effectively to support their daily operations, which supports our goal of utilizing digital capabilities to enhance [SMBs’] profitability, enable growth and operational efficiency.”

SMBs employ 15 million people in Kenya, but they have difficulty accessing finance because financiers have limited information about their businesses, according to the press release.

Since launching its commercial operations in the country last month, Solv Kenya has signed up 5,000 SMBs and 10 multinational corporations. The firm aims to have 10,000 SMBs on board by the end of the year, the release said.

“By offering multiple frictionless payment methods, businesses can realize increased sales and a growing customer base,” Cellulant Group Chief Revenue Officer David Waithaka said in the release. “Today, we’re excited to partner with Solv to avail these solutions to [SMBs] on their platform and work together for their growth.”

While users in other regions tend to use cards, consumers in Africa have a high preference for alternative payment methods, Cellulant Chief Product Officer Faizal Mirza told PYMNTS in an interview posted in April.

“We’ve seen that the payment methods that we’ve connected over the last seven years are becoming the most relevant methods of payments for businesses and their customers,” Mirza said at the time.

For all PYMNTS B2B and EMEA coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B and EMEA newsletters.