The Central Monetary institution of Nigeria (CBN) has revoked the cellular cash licence of Cellulant Nigeria, a subsidiary of 1 in all Africa’s oldest fintech companies Cellulant Corporation, based entirely on a letter addressed to the firm and viewed by TechCabal.
The revocation took assemble on December 6, 2023.
Cellulant is as a consequence of this fact leaving the user-coping with cellular cash market to focal point on providing payment products and companies to companies. The firm urged TechCabal through email that it determined to exit the cellular cash home and focal point on providing alternatives “as a long way succor as 2021”. This told its procurement of a Cost Solution Provider Provider (PSSP) licence from the CBN, which has been issued and is now operational.
“The regulator did now no longer revoke the licence as a results of infractions or any breach. The CBN succeeded in gazetting this demand in December 2023, occasioned by the time it took them to attain the strategy of revoking the cellular cash license as requested by Cellulant,” Cellulant said within the email.
The CBN within the aforementioned letter addressed to Cellulant said it became once revoking Cellulant’s cellular cash licence, “following [Cellulant’s] resolution to pause running the licence”.
The firm, which raised $54.5 million in three funding rounds between 2014 and 2018 from investors esteem The Rise Fund, has hit a tough patch now no longer too lengthy within the past. After an out-of-court docket settlement of a lengthy-drawn leadership tussle with its dilapidated co-founder, Bolaji Akinboro, Cellulant has struggled to stabilise its operations and raise original funding.
In 2023, Cellulant saw the need to restructure its enterprise, along side reducing the headcount by 20% in August. In December, the firm’s CEO Akshay Grover, stepped down citing non-public reasons. That exit also ended in one more spherical of layoffs within the firm and the announcement of an appearing CEO.