Nigerian Agri-Fintech company and subsidiary of MICT, Tingo Mobile, has partnered with Visa to enhance trade opportunities for Africa’s farmers and SME businesses, the companies have announced.
As part of the deal, the new digital payment platform TingoPay and Visa will reportedly target more than 22 million new customers that are being enrolled to Tingo Mobile following its recent trade deals with the All Farmer Association of Nigeria, and the Kingdom of Ashanti, Ghana.
Through the TingoPay app customers can use the Tingo Visa card, which has also been launched, to manage payments and make online transactions in domestic or foreign currencies, anywhere Visa is accepted.
Additionally, they can carry out a range of common functions such as paying utilities and bills, topping-up airtime and data, making funds and forex transfers and applying for loans.
The integration of Visa’s range of merchant services with TingoPay’s commerce portal and the Nwassaa agri-culture marketplace platform enables businesses to accept payments in any currency and use the TingoPay e-wallet to immediately fund purchases and make other payments.
Speaking on the partnership Dozy Mmobuosi, Founder of Tingo Mobile and Chief Executive Officer of Tingo Group Holdings LLC, said, “SMEs in all business sectors stand to benefit from our new range of Tingo Visa merchant services and the TingoPay business portal, whereas our smallholder farmer customers will see significant additional advantages through the integration of TingoPay with our Nwassa agri-marketplace platform.”
A Zeugma Management report in 2021, commissioned by Small Foundation, which investigated the fintech sector in Africa found that companies focused on agriculture made up a relatively small subset. About 35 such firms were identified within the nearly 600 companies operating in various segments of fintech across the continent.
As well as being arguably underrepresented given the importance of agriculture in African economies, the agricultural subset was also found to be underfunded as a cohort with a large proportion of this subset using a crowdfunding model
Meanwhile, access to sufficient credit from commercial banks for micro, small and medium enterprises was noted as a key challenge.
Commenting on the decision to team up with an Agri-Fintech firm in the region, Andrew Uaboi, Vice President and Head, Visa West Africa, noted the importance of the agricultural sector to Africa’s present and future, adding, “This partnership will help to digitise the entire value chain for farmers by enabling seamless digital payments which will facilitate economic growth and support the financial inclusion agenda across the continent.”
Photo by tonnyshots via Unsplash
