French financial services group Société Générale has announced the closure of its mobile money solution YUP in Cameroon and across six other markets in Africa.

In a message addressed to collaborators on 1 March 2022, Nicolas Pichou, General Manager of Société Générale Cameroun, said the commercial bank could no longer carry on with the initiative “for economic reasons” and the venture had proved unprofitable.

Pichou said despite efforts of YUP teams to gain market share and improve customer experience, the service still failed to produced desired results.

“YUP has not succeeded in creating a viable model and the market prospects do not allow us to envisage its continuation. Faced with this situation, the Société Générale group, in consultation with all the local subsidiaries of Société Générale, took the difficult decision to stop all YUP activities in all the markets where it had been deployed,” said Pichou.

According to the bank executive, the financial service’s MEA unit rolled out the YUP electronic wallet in 2017 to facilitate access to innovative transactional and financial means, in particular by dematerialising company payment services.

During its five years of operation in Cameroon, YUP faced stiff competition from Orange Money and MTN Mobile Money, both of whom have operated in the country for over 10 years.

YUP’s effort to capture many of the 19.5 million mobile money account holders in the country proved futile.

As YUP exits the Cameroon market, it has given its customers three months to withdraw savings from their electronic wallets or use the money to pay utility bills or make purchases.