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Covid-19 in Africa: favoring remote banking solutions

News

21/04/2020

Zoom on the CONNECT/YUP duo

In a global epidemic context, in Africa banks and telecom operators encourage their customers to favor digital transactions - mobile money and mobile banking - in order to limit physical contacts during financial transactions. Having embarked on the digital shift, Societe Generale's subsidiaries on the continent are already offering their customers a range of remote banking tools.

In Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire and Guinea, customers can for example use CONNECT, a simple and secure mobile solution, allowing easy access to their account in real time and securely, to order a checkbook, make transfers etc., all without going to a branch. "This banking application, which normally simplifies the daily lives of customers, turns out to be an essential tool in order to limit contact between people, given the current situation. Stay home!" says <link https: www.linkedin.com in maguette-sarr-91879a3b _blank>Maguette Sarr, Director of clientele for individuals and professionals at Société Générale Senegal.

For the 80% of Africans who do not yet have a bank account, there is no shortage of solutions to limit physical contact during financial transactions. In line with trends and usage on the continent, in 2017 the Group launched <link>YUP, a "mobile money" solution, which provides access to a full range of transactional and financial services (payment of invoices, transfers of money, receiving wages, withdrawing money from ATMs without a card, etc.) from their phone without even having a bank account.

But the YUP solution is also suitable for holders of a bank account. In Senegal, for example, it is via the CONNECT application of the subsidiary that the customer can independently transfer money from their bank account to their YUP electronic wallet and thus benefit from all the advantages of the two solutions, fluid and complementary.

Beyond the uses of individual customers, YUP is also a solution for corporate customers of Societe Generale. "YUP completes the Group's product offering to companies, with YUP Business, by giving them the possibility of dematerializing transactions previously carried out in cash or by checks of small amounts. This also allows professionals not to have to travel to a branch." tells <link https: www.linkedin.com in pierre-sadio-83a03b56 _blank>Pierre Sadio, Director YUP Senegal.

YUP is present in Senegal, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea and soon in Madagascar, with more than 1.4 million customers. To encourage its use, given the context, most YUP transactions are free. In this period of health crisis, all over Africa, subsidiaries are contributing to the essential measures to combat Covid-19, by offering customers the possibility of accessing their financial services remotely.