French telecommunications firm Orange has expanded its partnership with Ecobank to facilitate money transfers between accounts in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea Conakry and Niger.
In a statement the companies clarify that the partnership, which has been in existence in Mali since January 2015 and in Cameroon since August 2015, now allows customers belonging to both companies to top up Orange Money e-wallets from their bank account and vice-versa.
“Customers can use their mobile phones to securely transfer money between accounts at any time, without the need to go to a distribution point or to have any physical cash. Ecobank customers can also view bank account balance and obtain mini-statements by SMS via the service,” the companies explained in a joint press release.
This latest service announcement is viewed as being one that furthers the development of mobile financial services in Africa.
“Since its launch in January 2015 in Mali, this service has been a huge success with close to 110 million euros transferred between Ecobank and Orange Money accounts,” said Thierry Millet, Director of Orange Money, Mobile Payment and Contactless. “This easy-to-use system meets the demands of customers who already have a bank account and who want to use their mobile phones to carry out bank operations, wherever they are in the country and at whatever time of day. Customers will also benefit from the extensive network of thousands of licensed Orange Money vendors in addition to Ecobank’s own high-street branches, considerably increasing the number of withdrawal points. We are happy to deploy this partnership in large scale,” he said.
Patrick Akinwuntan, Group Executive, Consumer Banking at Ecobank Group said: “We have seen remarkable success in the volume of bank transfers since the beginning of a successful partnership between Ecobank and Orange and we are confident that this service will also have a great success the new countries that are embarking on this service. It is a platform which highlights the importance of online banking and mobile today and to our commitment in bringing convenient banking services to everyone in central Africa.”
The Orange Money mobile money transfer service was launched in 2008 in the Côte d’Ivoire and is available in 14 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
According to Orange close to 8 billion euros has been exchanged during 2015.
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