Pan-African payments provider Cellulant is back in the news again, this time thanks to  a financial services partnership with micro, small and medium-enterprise (MSME)-focused B2B digital platform Solv Kenya.

The two companies have signed an agreement that will enable Solv Kenya’s expanding base of MSME partners to access digital payment and collections services offered by Cellulant.

Following the announcement of Solv’s commercial operations in Kenya last month, this partnership will enable MSMEs using the Solv Kenya platform to conveniently reconcile, receive and view all their payments on the go.

MSMEs employ over 15 million people in the country but they struggle with access to finance, due mainly to financiers’ limited and unclear information about their operations.

According to Sheila Kimani-Omukuba, CEO of Solv Kenya, the collaboration will enable efficient and seamless transactions for the various business enterprises in the Solv marketplace. « Processing and tracking transactions have historically been a problem for many small businesses and financial institutions have to deal with this gap,” she says.

She adds: “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 MSMEs’ profitability, enable growth, and operational efficiency.”

More than 5,000 MSMEs and over ten multinational corporations have joined Solv Kenya, and the company plans to sign up 10,000 businesses by the end of the year. Cellulant has come on board as a technology payments partner.

Cellulant joins a growing list of partners in Solv Kenya’s portfolio. Through its supply chain financing solution, the platform has targeted giving over 100,000 Kenyan MSMEs access to funding by issuing over Kes 10 billion (a little under US$82,000,000) in working capital credit each year.